UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


THE    FLOCK 


8  5 


DON    JOSI'-.'S    DKIVK 
'  All  llirniieh  the  dark  tlicj'  steereil  a  cmirse  by  the  stars ' 


THE  FLOCK 


BY 


MARY    AUSTIN 

Author  of  ^^The  Land  of  Little  Rain,^^  ''LiJro,^ 
^^TAe  Basket   fVoman,"  etc. 


Illustrated  by  E.    Boyd  Smith 


.  ii^dlS 


.^^-f 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON,   MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

Cftc  flitcrsibc  press,  Cambribijc 

1906 


\  G5  \  ^ 


COPYRIGHT    1906    DY    MARY    AUSTIN 
ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED 

Published  October  iqob 


/     C 


p 


DEDICATED  TO 

THE  FRIENDLY  FOLK  IN  INYO 

AND 

THE  PEOPLE  OF  THE  BOOK 


CONTENTS 

I.   The  Coming  of  the  PYocks       ....  3 

II.   The  Sun  in  Aries 17 

III.  A  Shearing 33 

IV.  The  Hireling  Shepherd        ....  51 
V.   The  Long  Trail 71 

VI.   The  Open  Range 91 

VII.   The  Flock    ........  109 

VIII.    The  Go-Betweens 135 

IX.   The  Strife  of  the  Herdsmen         .        .        .155 

X.   Liers-in-Wait 175 

XI.   The  Sheep  and  the  Reserves  .        .        .191 

XII.   Ranchos  Tejon 215 

XIII.   The  Shade  of  the  Arrows      ....  253 


THE   COMING   OF   THE 

FLOCKS  —  HOW  RIVERA  Y  MON- 
CADA  BROUGHT  THE  FIRST  OF 
THEM  TO  ALTA  CALIFORNIA,  AND 
A  PREFACE  WHICH  IS  NOT  ON 
ANY    ACCOUNT    TO    BE     OMITTED. 


CHAPTER  I 

,  i  Si  S 

THE  COMING  OF  THE  FLOCKS 

A  GREAT  many  interesting  things  happened 
about  the  time  Rivera  y  Moncada  brought  up 
the  first  of  the  flocks  from  Velicata.  That  same 
year  Daniel  Boone,  lacking  bread  and  salt  and 
friends,  heard  with  prophetic  rapture  the  sway- 
ing of  young  rivers  in  the  Dark  and  Bloody 
Ground  ;  that  year  British  soldiers  shot  down 
men  in  the  streets  of  Boston  for  be^'innino^  to 
be  proud  to  call  themselves  Americans  and 
think  accordingly;  that  year  Junipero  Serra 
lifted  the  cross  by  a  full  creek  in  the  Port  of 


4  THE    FLOCK 

Monterey  ;  —  coughing  of  guns  by  the  eastern 
sea,  by  the  sea  in  the  west  the  tinkle  of  altar 
bells  and  soft  blether  of  the  flocks. 

All  the  years  since  Onate  saw  its  purple 
hills  low  like  a  cloud  in  the  west,  since  Cabrillo 
drifted  past  the  tranquil  reaches  of  its  coast, 
the  land  lay  unspoiled,  inviolate.  Then  God 
stirred  up  His  Majesty  of  Spain  to  attempt  the 
dominion  of  Alta  California  by  the  hand  of  the 
Franciscans.  This  sally  of  the  grey  brothers 
was  like  the  return  of  Ezra  to  upbuild  Jeru- 
salem ;  "  they  strengthened  their  hands  with 
vessels  of  silver,"  with  bells,  with  vestments  and 
altar  cloths,  with  seed  corn  and  beasts  col- 
lected from  the  missions  of  Baja  California. 
This  was  done  under  authority  by  Rivera  y 
Moncada.  "And,"  says  the  Padre  in  his  jour- 
nal, "  although  it  was  with  a  somewhat  heavy 
hand,  it  was  undergone  for  God  and  the  King." 

Four  expeditions,  two  by  land  and  two  by 
sea,  set  out  from  Old  Mexico.  Seiior  San  Jose 
being  much  in  the  public  mind  at  that  time, 
on  account  of  having  just  delivered  San  Jose 
del  Cabo  from  a  plague  of  locusts,  was  chosen 
patron  of  the  adventure,  and  Serra,  at  the  re- 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FLOCKS    5 

quest  of  his  majesty,  sang  the  Mass  of  SuppHca- 
tion.  The  four  expeditions  drew  together  again 
at  San  Diego,  having  suffered  much,  the  ships' 
crews  from  scurvy  and  the  land  parties  from 
thirst  and  desertion.  It  was  now  July,  and  back  a 
mile  from  the  weltering  bay  the  bloom  of  cacti 
pricked  the  hot,  close  air  like  points  of  flame. 

Seiior  San  Jose,  it  appeared,  had  done  enough 
for  that  turn,  for  though  Serra,  without  waiting 
for  the  formal  founding  of  Mission  San  Diego 
de  Alcala,  dispatched  Crespi  and  Portola  north- 
ward, their  eyes  were  holden,  and  they  found 
nothing  to  their  minds  resembling  the  much 
desired  Port  of  Monterey,  and  the  Mission 
prospered  so  indifferently  that  their  return  was 
to  meet  the  question  of  abandonment.  The 
good  Junipero,  having  reached  the  end  of  his 
own  devisins^,  determined  to  leave  somethincj 
to  God's  occasions,  and  instituted  a  novena. 
For  nine  days  Saint  Joseph  was  entreated  by 
prayers,  by  incense,  and  candle  smoke ;  and 
on  the  last  hour  of  the  last  day,  which  was 
March  19,  1770,  there  appeared  in  the  far  blue 
ring  of  the  horizon  the  white  flick  of  a  sail 
bringing  succor.    Upon  this  Serra  went  on  the 


THE    FLOCK 


second  and  successful  expedition  to  Monterey, 
and  meantime  Don  Fernando  de  Rivera  y 
Moncada  had  gone  south  with  twenty  soldiers 
to  bring  up  the  flocks  from  Velicata. 

Over  the  mesa  from  the  town,  color  of  pop- 
pies ran  like  creeping  fire  in  the  chamisal,  all 
the  air  was  reeking  sweet  with  violets,  yellow  and 
paling  at  the  edges  like  the  bleached,  fair  hair 
of  children  who  play  much  about  the  beaches. 
Don  Fernando  left  Velicata  in  May — O,  the 
good  land  that  holds  the  record  of  all  he  saw ! 
—  the    tall,  white,   odorous  Candles  -  of  -  Our 

Lord,  the  long,  plumed 
reaches  of  the  chami- 
sal, the  tangle  of  the 
meghariza,  the  yellow- 
starred  plats  of  the  cki/i- 
cojote,  reddening  berries 
of  rhus  from  which  the 
Padres  were  yet  to  gather  wax  that  God's  altars 
might  not  lack  candles,  the  steep  barrancas 
clothed  with  deer-weed  and  toyon,  blue  hills  that 
swam  at  noon  in  waters  of  mirage.  There  was 
little  enough  water  of  any  sort  on  that  journey, 
none  too  niuch  of  sapless  feed.    Dry  camp  sue- 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FLOCKS    7 

ceeded  to  dry  camp.  Hills  neared  them  with 
the  hope  of  springs  and  passed  bone-dry,  in- 
hospitably stiff  with  cactus  and  rattle  weed. 
The  expedition  drifted  steadily  northward  and 
smelled  the  freshness  of  the  sea ;  then  they 
heard  the  night-singing  mocking  bird,  wildly 
sweet  in  the  waxberry  bush,  and,  still  two  days 
from  San  Diego,  met  the  messengers  of  Gov- 
ernor Portola  going  south  with  news  of  the 
founding  of  Monterey.  This  was  in  June  of 
1770.  No  doubt  they  at  San  Diego  were  glad 
when  they  heard  the  roll  of  the  bells  and  the 
blether  of  the  fiock. 

Under  the  Padres'  careful  shepherding  the 
sheep  increased  until,  at  the  time  of  the  secu- 
larization, three  hundred  and  twenty  thousand 
fed  in  the  Mission  purlieus.  Blankets  were 
woven,  scrapes,  and  a  coarse  kind  of  cloth 
called yVr^rt-,  but  the  wool  was  poor  and  thin; 
probably  the  home  government  wished  not  to 
encourage  a  rival  to  the  exports  of  Spain.  After 
secularization  in  1833,  the  numbers  of  sheep 
fell  off  in  California,  until,  to  supply  the  demand 
for  their  coarse-flavored  mutton,  flocks  were 
driven  in  from  Mexico.  These  "  mustang  sheep  " 


8  THE    FLOCK 

were  little  and  lean  and  mostly  black,  sheared 
but  two  and  one  half  pounds  of  wool,  and  were 
so  wild  that  they  must  be  herded  on  horseback. 
About  this  time  rams  were  imported  from 
China  without  materially  improving  the  breed. 
Then  the  rush  westward  in  the  eager  fifties 
brought  men  whose  trade  had  been  about  sheep. 
Those  who  had  wintered  flocks  on  New  Eng- 
land hill  pastures  began  to  see  possibilities  in 
the  belly-deep  grasses  of  the  coast  ranges. 
In  '53,  William  W.  Hollister  brought  three 
hundred  ewes  over  the  emigrant  trail  and 
laid  the  foundation  of  a  fortune.  But  think  of 
the  fatigues  of  it,  the  rivers  to  swim,  the  passes 
to  attempt,  the  watch  fires,  the  far  divided 
water  holes,  the  interminable  lapsing  of  days 
and  nights,  —  and  a  sheep's  day's  journey  is 


THE    COMING    OF  Till-:    FLOCKS         9 

seven  miles!  No  doubt  they  had  some  pressing, 
and  comfortable  waits  in  fat  pastures,  but  it 
stands  on  the  mere  evidence  of  the  fact,  that 
Hollister  was  a  man  of  large  patience.  During 
the  nextyearSolomon  J ewett,  the  elder,  shipped 
a  flock  by  way  of  Panama,  and  the  improve- 
ment of  the  breeds  began.  The  business  throve 
from  the  first ;  there  are  men  yet  to  tell  you 
they  have  paid  as  high  as  twelve  dollars  for  a 
well-fatted  mutton. 

The  best  days  of  shepherding  in  California 
were  before  the  Frenchmen  began  to  appear 
on  the  mesas.  Owners  then  had,  by  occupancy, 
the  rights  to  certain  range,  rights  respected  by 
their  neighbors.  Then  suddenly  the  land  was 
overrun  by  little  dark  men  who  fed  where  feed 
was,  kept  to  their  own  kind,  turned  money 
quickly,  and  went  back  to  France  to  spend  it. 
At  evening  the  solitary  homesteader  saw  with 
dread  their  dust  blurs  on  his  horizon,  and  at 
morning  looked  with  rage  on  the  cropped  lands 
that  else  should  have  nourished  his  own  neces- 
sary stock  ;  smoke  of  the  burning  forests  wit- 
nessed to  heaven  against  them.  Of  this  you 
shall    hear    further   with     some    particularity. 


lO  THE    FLOCK 

Those  who  can  suck  no  other  comfort  from 
the  tariff  revision  of  the  early  eighties  may 
write  to  its  account  that  it  saved  us  unmea- 
sured acreage  of  wild  grass  and  trees. 

What  more  it  did  is  set  down  in  the  proper 
place,  but  certainly  the  drop  in  prices  drove 
out  of  the  wool  industry  those  who  could  best 
be  spared  from  it.  Now  it  could  be  followed 
profitably  by  none  but  the  foreseeing  and  con- 
sidering shepherd,  and  to  such  a  one  dawned 
the  necessity  of  conserving  the  feed,  though 
he  had  not  arrived  altruistically  at  wanting  it 
conserved  for  anybody  else..  So  by  the  time 
sheep-herding  had  recovered  its  status  as  a 
business,  the  warrings  and  evasions  began 
again  over  the  withdrawal  of  the  forest  reserves 
from  public  pasturing.  Here  in  fact  it  rests, 
for  though  there  be  sheep-owners  who  under- 
stand the  value  of  tree-covered  water-sheds, 
there  are  others  to  whom  the  unfair  discrimi- 
nation between  flocks  and  horned  cattle  is  an 
excuse  for  violation  ;  and  just  as  a  few  Cots- 
wolds  can  demoralize  a  bunch  of  tractable 
merinos,  so  the  unthinking  herder  brings  the 
business  to  discsteem. 


THE    COMING    OF   THE    FLOCKS       ii 

What  I  have  to  do  here  is  to  set  down  with- 
out prejudice,  but  not  without  sympathy,  as 
much  as  I  have  been  able  to  understand  of 
the  whole  matter  kindled  by  the  journey  up 
from  Velicata  in  the  unregarded  spring  of 
1770,  and  now  laid  to  the  successors  of  Don 
Fernando  de  Rivera  y  Moncada. 

I  suppose  of  all  the  people  who  are  con- 
cerned with  the  making  of  a  true  book,  the 
one  who  puts  it  to  the  pen  has  the  least  to  do 
with  it.  This  is  the  book  of  Jimmy  Rosemeyre 
and  Jose  Jesus  Lopez,  of  Little  Pete,  who  is 
not  to  be  confounded  with  the  Petit  Pete  who 
loved  an  antelope  in  the  Ceriso,  —  the  book 
of  Noriega,  of  Sanger  and  the  Manxman  and 
Narcisse  Duplin,  and  many  others  who,  wit- 
tingly or  unwittingly,  have  contributed  to  the 
performances  set  down  in  it.  Very  little,  not 
even  the  virtue  of  being  uniformly  grateful  to 
the  little  gods  who  have  constrained  me  to  be 
of  the  audience,  can  be  put  to  the  writer's  credit. 
All  of  the  book  that  is  mine  is  the  temper  of 
mind  which  makes  it  impossible  that  there 
should  be  any  play  not  worth  the  candle. 


12  THE    FLOCK 

By  two  years  of  homesteading  on  the  bor- 
ders of  Tejon,  by  fifteen  beside  the  Long 
Trail  where  it  spindles  out  through  Inyo,  by 
all  the  errands  of  necessity  and  desire  that 
made  me  to  know  its  moods  and  the  calendar 
of  its  shrubs  and  skies,  by  the  chances  of  Si- 
erra holidays  where  there  were  always  bells 
jangling  behind  us  in  the  pines  or  flocks 
bletherina^  before  us  in  the  meadows,  bv  the 
riot  of  shearings,  by  the  faint  winy  smell  in 
the  streets  of  certain  of  the  towns  of  the  San 
Joaquin  that  apprises  of  the  yearly  inturning 
of  the  wandering  shepherds,  I  grew  aware  of 
all  that  you  read  here  and  of  much  beside. 
For  if  I  have  not  told  all  of  the  story  of  Nar- 
cisse  Duplin  and  what  happened  to  the  Indian 
who  worked  for  Joe  Espelier,  it  is  because  it 
concerned  them  merely  as  men  and  would  as 
likely  have  befallen  them  in  any  other  business. 

Something  also-  I  had  from  the  Walking 
Woman,  when  that  most  wise  and  insane  crea- 
ture used  to  come  through  by  Temblor,  and 
a  little  from  j)retty  Edie  Julien  interpreting 
shyly  in  her  father's  house,  but  not  much,  I 
being  occupied  in  acquiring  a  distaste  for  my 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FLOCKS   13 

own  language  hearing  her  rippling  French 
snag  upon  such  words  as  "  spud  "  and  "  bunch  " 
and  "grub."  In  time  I  grew  to  know  the  owner 
of  flocks  bearing  the  brand  of  the  Three  Legs 
of  Man,  and  as  I  sat  by  his  fire,  touching  his 
tempered  spirit  as  one  half  draws  and  drops  a 
sword  in  its  scabbard  for  pleasure  of  its  fine- 
ness, becoming  flock-wise  I  understood  why 
the  French  herders  hereabout  give  him  the 
name  of  the  Best  Shepherd.  I  met  and  talked 
with  the  elder  Beale  after  he  had  come  to  the 
time  of  life  when  talking  seems  a  sufflcient 
occupation,  and  while  yet  there  was  color  and 
slow  as  of  the  heart  wood  breakinsf  in  the 
white  ash  of  remembrance.  But,  in  fact,  the 
best  way  of  knowing  about  shepherding  is  to 
know  sheep,  and  for  this  there  was  never  an 
occasion  lackinor.  In  this  land  of  such  indolent 
lapping  of  the  nights  and  days  that  neither 
the  clock  nor  the  calendar  has  any  pertinence 
to  time,  I  call  on  the  eye  of  my  mind,  as  it 
were,  for  relief,  looking  out  across  the  long 
moon-colored  sands,  and  sa)^ :  — 

"  Do  you  see  anything  coming.  Sister  Anne  ?  " 
"  I  see  the  dust  of  a  flock  on  the  highway." 


14 


THE    FLOCK 


Well,  then,  if  from  the  clutch  of  great  Te- 
dium (of  whom  more  than  his  beard  is  blue) 
there  is  no  rescue  but  such  as  comes  by  way 
of  the  flock,  let  us  at  least  miss  no  point  of  the 
entertainment. 


II 


THE  SUN  IX  ARIES  — WHICH 

RELATES  HOW  THE  FLOCKS  COME 
TO  THE  HOME  PASTURES,  AND 
THE  PROPER  MANAGEMENT  OF 
LAMBS. 


CHAPTER    II 


THE    SUN    IN    ARIES 


About  the  time  there  begin  to  be  cloud 
shadows  moving  on  the  unfurrowed  wild  pas- 
tures of  the  San  Joaquin  there  begin  to  be 
windless  clouds  of  dust  coasting  the  foothills 
under  the  Sierras,  drifting  in  from  the  blue 
barriers  of  the  seaward  ranges,  or  emerging 
mysteriously  from  unguessed  quarters  of  the 
shut  horizon.  They  drop  into  the  valley  from 
Tehachapi,  from  Kings  River  and  Kern,  as 
far  driven  as  from  the  meadows  of  Mono  and 


1 8  THE   FLOCK 

Yosemite,  and  for  the  time  of  their  coming: 
acknowledge  no  calendar  but  the  unheralded 
Beoinnino;  of  Rains.  Let  there  be  but  the 
faintest  flush  of  green  on  the  pastures  they 
left  bare  in  the  spring,  and  by  some  wireless 
prescience  all  the  defiles  of  Little  Lake  and 
Red  Rock  are  choked  with  the  returning 
flocks.  Let  one  of  the  pallid  fogs  of  early  win- 
ter obscure  the  hollow  of  the  valley  for  a  night 
and  a  day,  and  at  its  clearing,  mark  the  un- 
patented lands  all  freckled  with  dust-colored 
bands.  Drenched  mornings  one  counts  a 
dozen  pale  blurs  of  moving  dust  low  along  the 
foothills,  and  evenings  on  the  red  track  of  the 
sun  sees  the  same  number  of  shepherd  fires 
blossom  through  the  dusk.  The  count  of  them 
diminishes  yearly,  but  since  as  long  ago  as  the 
early  sixties,  the  southern  end  of  the  San  Joa- 
quin Valley  has  been  the  favorite  lambing 
place  of  flocks  ranging  north  and  east  as  many 
miles  as  a  flock  can  cover  in  the  nine  or  ten 
months'  interval  between  the  end  and  besin- 
ning  of  winter  feed.  The  equable  weather,  the 
great  acreage  of  unclaimed  pasture,  and  the 
nearness  of  the  trains  tliat  pound  through  the 


THE    SUN    IN    ARIES  19 

valley  like  some  great,  laboring,  arterial  beat 
of  the  outer  world,  draw  the  wandering  flocks 
to  a  focus  once  in  the  year  about  the  time  the 
sun  enters  Aries.  As  I  say,  they  acknowledge 
no  calendar  but  the  rains,  and  the  earlier  these 
come  the  better,  so  that  the  flocks  get  into  the 
home  pastures  before  the  ewes  are  too  heavy 
for  traveling.  Before  all,  at  lambing  time  the 
shepherd  seeks  quiet  and  good  pasture,  and  if 
he  owns  no  land  at  all  he  must  at  least  have 
a  leasehold  on  suitable  places  to  put  up  his 
corrals. 

Since  as  long  ago  as  men  referred  their  af- 
fairs to  the  stars  February  has  been  the  month 
for  lambing,  and  that,  you  understand,  is  as  long 
ago  as  the  sun  was  actually  in  Aries,  before  the 
precession  of  the  Equinoxes  pulled  it  back 
along  the  starry  way.  At  Los  Alisos  the  mid- 
dle of  January  sees  the  ewes  all  gathered  to  the 
home  ranch,  and  here  and  there  from  deep 
coves  of  the  hills,  yellowing  films  of  dust  rising 
steadily  mark  where  the  wethers  still  feed,  fat- 
tening for  the  market.  At  this  time  of  the  year 
the  land  is  quiescent  and  the  sky  clearer  than 
it  will  be  until  this  time  again,  halting  midway 


20  THE    FLOCK 

between  the  early  rains  and  late.  All  the  sum- 
mer's haze  lies  folded  in  a  band  a  little  above  the 
foothills  and  below  the  snows  of  the  Sierras,  so 
that  the  flame-white  crests  appear  supernatu- 
rally  suspended  in  clearness,  the  very  front  and 
battlements  of  heaven.  In  the  fields  above  the 
little  green  tumuli  of  alfalfa,  great  cotton  woods 
click  a  withered  leaf  or  two,  and  the  tops  of 
the  long  row  of  close,  ascending  poplars,  run- 
ninor  down  from  the  ranch  house,  are  absorbed 
in  an  infinite  extension  of  light.  Now  besides 
the  weirs  one  finds  a  heron's  feather,  and  mal- 
lards squatter  in  the  crescent  pools  below  the 
drops.  The  foothills  show  greenness  deepen- 
ing in  the  gullies  ;  nights  have  a  touch  of  chill- 
iness with  frequent  heavy  dews. 

Leberge,  the  head  shepherd  of  Los  Alisos,  is 
a  careful  man.  The  ewes  from  which  lambs  are 
first  expected  have  the  fattest  pastures ;  corrals 
to  accommodate  a  hundred  of  them  are  set  off 
with  movable  fencing;  the  number  of  herders 
is  multiplied  and  provided  with  tar  and  tur- 
pentine and  such  remedial  simples.  But  for 
the  most  part  nature  has  a  full  measure  of 
trust.    In  the  north  where  sheep  run  on  fenced 


THE    SUN    IN    ARIES  21 

pastures,  the  mothers  have  leave  to  seek  shel- 
ters of  rock  and  scrub  and  clear  little  formless 
hollows  to  bed  their  young.  There  shepherd- 
ing has  not  wholly  superseded  the  weather 
wisdom  of  the  brute,  and  in  years  of  little  pro- 
mise the  untended  ewes  will  not  lick  their 
^  lambs.  But  here  among  the  hobo  herds  of  the 
Long  Trail,  artificial  considerations,  such  as 
the  relative  price  of  wool  and  mutton  and  the 
probable  management  of  forest  reserves,  deter- 
mine whether  the  ewe  shall  be  allowed  to  rear 
the  twin  lambs  that  nature  allots  her.  Years  of 
curtailed  pastures  she  cannot  suckle  both  and 
grow  wool,  and  neither  youngster  will  be  strong 
enough  to  endure  the  stress  of  a  dry  season  : 
the  mother  becomes  enfeebled,  and  the  too 
grasping  shepherd  may  end  by  losing  all 
three.  Much  depends  on  the  promptness  with 
which  the  weaker  of  twins  is  discarded  or 
suckled  to  some  unfortunate  mother  of  still- 
born lambs.  Once  a  ewe  has  smelled  the  smell 
of  her  offspring  the  herder  must  take  a  leaf 
out  of  the  book  of  the  Supplanter  in  the  man- 
agement of  forced  adoptions.  The  skin  of  the 
dead  lamb  is    sewed   about  the    body  of   the 


22  THE    FLOCK 

foundling,  limp  little  legs  dangling  about  its 
legs,  a  stiff  little  tail  above  a  wagging  one,  — 
all  of  no  moment  so  long  as  the  ewe  finds 
some  rag-tag  smell  of  her  own  young  among 
the  commingling  smells  of  the  stranger  and  the 

dry  and  decaying  hide. 
Here  and  there  will 
be  young  ewes  in  their 
first  season  refusing 
their  lambs.  Trust  the 
French  herders  for  finding  devices  against 
such  a  reversion  of  nature.  About  the  corners 
of  the  field  will  be  pits  where  by  enforced 
companionship  the  one  smell  of  all  smells  a 
sheep  must  remember,  with  no  root  in  expe- 
rience or  memory,  gropes  to  the  seat  of  her 
dull  consciousness,  and  the  ewe  gives  down 
her  milk.  A  commoner  device  is  to  tie  the 
recalcitrant  dam  near  a  dog,  and  the  silly 
sheep,  trembling  and  afraid,  too  long  a  mere 
fraction  of  a  flock  to  have  any  faculty  for 
sustaining  dread,  makes  friends  with  her  un- 
welcome lamb  as  against  their  common  enemy, 
the  collie.  Remedial  measures  such  as  these 
must  be  immediate,  otherwise  in  chill  nights  of 


THE    SUN    IN   ARIES  23 

frost  or  weeping  fog,  the  unlicked,  unsuckled 
lambs  will  die.  So  it  is  that  here  and  there, 
but  not  invariably,  one  sees  a  shepherd  mak- 
ing rounds  with  a  lantern  through  the  night, 
and  in  a  flock  of  three  to  five  hundred  ewes 
finding  much  to  do. 

Nights  such  as  this  the  bunch  grass  cowers 
to  the  wind  that  lies  too  low  along  the  pasture 
to  stir  the  tops  of  trees.  The  Dipper  swings 
low  from  the  Pole,  and  changeful  Algol  is  a 
beacon  in  the  clear  space  between  the  ranges 
above  which  the  white  planets  blink  and  peer. 
The  quavering  mu-uh-uh,  mu-uh-uh-uh  of  the 
mothering  ewes  keeps  on  softly  all  night.  The 
red  eye  of  the  herder's  fire  winks  in  the  ash ; 
the  dogs  get  up  from  before  it,  courting  an  in- 
vitation to  their  accustomed  work.  Whining 
throatily,  they  nose  at  the  master's  heels  and 
are  bidden  down  again  lest  they  scare  the  ewe 
from  her  unlicked  lamb.  Great  Orion  slopes 
from  his  meridian,  and  Ris^el  calls  Aldebaran 
up  the  sky.  The  lantern  swings  through  the 
dark  sweep  of  pasture,  cool  and  dewy  and  pal- 
pitant with  the  sense  of  this  earliest,  elemental 
stress  of  parturition. 


24  THE    FLOCK 

Every  now  and  then  some  unconsidered 
protest  arises  against  the  clipped  and  muti- 
lated speech  by  which  a  human  mother  ex- 
presses her  sense  of  satisfaction  in  her  young. 
But  let  the  protestant  go  to  Los  Alisos  when 
the  sun  is  far  gone  in  its  course  in  Aries,  and 
understand,  if  he  can,  the  breaking  of  the 
sheep's  accustomed  bleat  to  the  soft  mutter 
of  the  ewes,  and  what  over-sense  prompts  the 
wethers  to  futile  adoptions  of  lambs  coaxed 
from  the  dam  by  the  same  soft,  shuddering 
cry.  Such  a  sheep  is  by  herders  called  a 
"  grannie,"  and  by  simply  saying  it  is  so,  passed 
by,  but  at  this  hour  when  the  darkness  is  im- 
pregnate with  the  dawn  and  the  sense  responds 
to  the  roll  of  the  world  eastward,  the  return  of 
these  unsexed  brutes  to  the  instinct  of  parental 
use  takes  on  the  proportions  of  immeasurable 
law.  But  nourishing  is  in  fact  the  greater  part 
of  mothering,  and  lest  it  should  come  amiss 
the  herder  marks  the  careless  or  unwilling  ewe 
and  the  lamb  each  with  a  black  daub  on  the 
head  or  shoulder,  ]:)air  and  pair  alike,  and  con- 
spicuously, so  that  he  sees  at  a  glance  at  nurs- 
ing time  that  each  young  goes  to  its  own  dam. 


THE    SUN    IN    ARIES  25 

Young  lambs  are  principally  legs,  the  con- 
necting body  being  merely  a  contrivance  for 
converting  milk  into  more  leg,  so  you  under- 
stand how  it  is  that  they  will  follow  in  two 
days  and  are  able  to  take  the  trail  in  a  fort- 
night, traveling  four  and  five  miles  a  day,  fall- 
ing asleep  on  their  feet,  and  tottering  forward  in 
the  way.  By  this  time  it  has  become  necessary 
to  move  out  from  the  home  fold  to  fresher 
pastures,  but  keeping  as  close  as  the  feed 
allows.  Not  until  after  shearing  do  they  take 
to  the  mountain  pastures  and  the  Long  Trail. 
Now  there  will  be  bird's-eye  gilias,  sun-cups, 
and  miles  of  pepper  grass  on  the  mesas  ;  coast- 
ward  great  clots  and  splashes  of  gold,  glowing 
and  dimming  as  the  sun  wakes  the  dormidera 
or  the  mist  of  cloud  folds  it  up.  Wethers  and 
yearlings  will  be  ranging  all  abroad,  but  ewes 
with  lambs,  five  or  six  hundred  in  a  bunch, 
will  be  kept  as  much  as  possible  in  fenced  pas- 
tures. At  a  month  old  the  fiock  instinct  begins 
to  stir;  lambs  will  run  together  and  choose  a 
bedding  place  sunward  of  a  fence  or  the  wind- 
break of  young  willows  along  an  irrigating 
ditch.    Here  they  leap  and  play  and  between 


26 


THE    FLOCK 


whiles  doze.  Here  the  ewes  seek  them  with 
dripping  and  distended  udders.  It  is  a  ques- 
tion during  the  first  week  if  the  lamb  knows 
its  mother  at  all  and  she  it  by  smell  only,  and 
smells  indiscriminately  at  black  lambs  or  white, 
but  at  the  end  of  eight  days  they  come  calling 
each  to  each.  Let  three  or  four  hundred  lambs 
lie  adoze  in  the  sun  of  a  late  afternoon ;  comes 
a  ewe  across  the  pastures,  craving  relief  for 
her  overflowing  dugs.  Yards  away  the  lamb 
answers  her  out  of  sleep  and  goes  teetering 
forward  on  its  rickety  legs,  her  own  lamb,  mind 
you,  capering  up  with  perhaps  the  tattered 
skin  askew  on  its  back,  that  first  deceived  her 
into  permitting  its  hungry  mouth ;  and  not 
one  of  the  four  hundred  others  has  more  than 
flicked  an  ear  or  drawn  a  deeper  breath.  But 
suppose   her    to    have  tvvins,   these   will   have 


THE    SUN    IX    ARIES  27 

been  tied  together  by  the  herder  so  that  the 
stronger  may  not  get  first  to  the  fountain  but 
drags  his  weaker  brother  up.  In  time  the  con- 
\iction  of  two  mouths  at  the  udder  becomes 
rooted,  and  one  will  not  be  permitted  without 
the  other.  Then  the  amount  of  urgency  to 
come  on  and  be  fed  which  the  spraddle-kneed 
first  comer  can  put  into  the  waggings  of  his 
tail,  hardly  bears  out  the  observation  that  the 
twins  do  not  know  each  other  very  well  except 
by  smell. 

The  Valley  of  the  San  Joaquin  is  wide 
enough  to  give  the  whole  effect  of  unmeasured 
plain,  and  the  sky  at  the  end  of  the  lambing 
season  shallow,  and  hemmed  by  tenuous 
cloud.  Close-shut  days  the  flocks  drift  about 
its  undulations,  sandy,  shelterless  stretches, 
dull  rivers  defiled  by  far-off  rains,  one  day  east 
under  black,  broad-heading  oaks,  another  west 
in  foolish,  oozy  intricacies  of  sloughs  where 
rustling  tules  lean  a  thousand  ways.  Blossoms 
come  up  and  the  lambs  nibble  them;  filaree 
uncurls  for  the  sheep  to  crop.  The  herder 
walks  at  the  head   of  the  flock,  and  if  he  is 


28  THE    FLOCK 

near  enough,  watches  the  hilltops  breaking 
the  thin  woof  of  cloud  to  note  how  the  feed 
advances  in  their  deepening  green;  and  always 
he  prays  for  rain.  At  intervals  the  head  shep- 
herd bears  down  upon  him  by  some  of  the 
whity-brown  roads  that  run  every  way  in  the 
valley  and  by  endless  crisscrossing  and  rami- 
fications lead  to  all  the  places  where  you  do 
not  particularly  wish  to  go.  Now  and  then  a 
buyer  reaches  him  by  the  same  roads  to  over- 
look the  yearlings  or  estimate  the  chances  of 
wool.  Rains  may  come  as  late  as  the  last  of 
April  with  great  blessedness;  without  thunder 
01"  threatening,  miles  and  miles  of  slant  grey 
curtains  drop  between  him  and  the  outer 
world.  Whether  to  lie  out  in  it  unfended  and 
fireless  is  more  or  less  distressful,  is  a  matter 
of  the  point  of  view.  A  sheepman's  fortune 
may  depend  on  the  number  of  days  between 
lambing  and  shearing  when  the  dormidera  is 
too  wet  to  unfold.  It  is  a  comfort  in  the  heart 
of  a  hundred-mile  spread  of  storm  to  sit  under 
a  canvas  and  notch  these  days  as  an  augury 
on  your  staff. 

Normally  the  parting  of  the  flocks  begins 


THE    SUN   IN    ARIKS  29 

immediately  after  shearing,  but  if  possible  the 
herders  keep  on  in  the  valley  until  the  lambs 
are  weaned.  This  may  occur  at  the  end  of 
about  a  hundred  days  and  is  best  accomplished 
by  a  system  of  cross  weaning,  the  lambs  of  one 
flock  turned  to  the  ewes  of  the  next.  But  by 
whatever  means,  it  is  important  to  have  older 
sheep  with  the  young,  so  they  become  flock- 
wise  and  accustomed  to  the  doos.  Not  until 
all  this  has  taken  place  are  the  flocks  properly 
ready  for  the  Long  Trail,  but  before  that  the 
poppy  gold  which  begins  on  the  coastward 
fringes  of  the  valley  will  have  been  cast  well 
up  on  the  slope  of  the  Sierras,  and  about  the 
centres  of  shepherd  life  begins  to  drift  the 
first  indubitable  sign  of  a  shearing,  the  smell 
of  the  Mexican  cigarette. 


Ill 


A  SHEARING  —  the  crew,  the 

CAMP,  THE  SHEARING  BAILE, 
AND  THE  PARTING  OF  THE 
FLOCKS. 


CHAPTER    III 


A    SHEARING 


To  find  a  shearing,  turn  out  from  the  towns 
of  the  southern  San  Joaquin  at  the  time  of 
the  year  when  the  hilltops  begin  to  fray  out 
in  the  multitudinous  keen  spears  of  the  wild 
hyacinth,  and  look  in  the  crumbling  flakes  of 
the  foothill  road  for  the  tracks  of  the  wool 
wagon.  Here  the  roll  of  the  valley  up  from 
the  place  of  its  lagoons  is  by  long  mesas  break- 
ing into  summits  and  shoulders  ;  successive 
crests  of  them  reared  up  by  slow,  ample  heav- 


34  THE    FLOCK 

ings,  settling  into  folds,  with  long,  valleyward 
slopes,  and  blunt  mountain-facing  heads,  flung 
up  at  last  in  the  sharp  tumult  of  the  Sierras. 
Thereward  the  trail  of  the  wool  w^agon  bears 
evenly  and  white.  Over  it,  preceded  by  the 
smell  of  cigarettes,  go  the  shearing  crews  of 
swarthy  men  with  good  manners  and  the  air 
of  opera  pirates. 

When  Solomon  Jewett  held  the  ranch  above 
the  ford  by  the  river  which  was  Rio  Bravo,  and 
is  now  Kern,  shearings  w^ent  forward  in  a  man- 
ner suited  to  the  large  leisure  of  the  time.  That 
was  in  the  early  sixties,  when  there  were  no 
laborers  but  Indians.  These  drove  the  flocks 
out  in  the  shoulder-high  grasses;  "for  in  those 
days,"  said  Jewett,  "  we  never  thought  feed  any 
good,  less  than  eighteen  inches  high,"  and  at 
the  week  end  rounded  them  up  at  headquarters 
for  the  small  allowance  of  whiskey  that  alone 
held  them  to  the  six  days'  job.  It  was  a  con- 
dition of  the  weekly  dole  that  all  knives  and 
weapons  should  be  first  surrendered,  but  as  you 
can  imagine,  whiskey  being  hard  to  come  by  at 
that  time,  much  water  went  to  each  man's  flask  ; 
the  nearer  the  bottom  of  the  cask  the  more  water. 


A    SHEARING  35 

"  No  wcrito,  Don  Solomon,  no  wci'-ito'''  com- 
plained the  herders  as  they  saw  the  liquor 
paling  in  the  flasks,  but  it  was  still  worth  such 
service  as  they  rendered. 

The  ration  at  Rio  Bravo  was  chiefly  atole 
or  "  tole  "  of  flour  and  water,  coffee  made  thick 
with  sugar,  and  raw  mutton  which  every  man 
cut  off  and  toasted  for  himself  ;  and  a  shearing 
then  was  a  very  jewel  of  the  comfortable  issue  of 
labor.  Of  the  day's  allotment  each  man  chose 
^y'^o  shear  what  pleased  him,  and  withdrawing, 
slept  in  the  shade  and  the  dust  of  the  chaparral 
while  his  women  struggled,  with  laughter  and  no 
bitterness  of  spirit,  with  the  stubborn  and  over- 
wrinkled  sheep.  But  even  Indians,  it  seems, 
are  amenable  to  the  time,  and  I  have  it  on 
the  authority  of  Little  Pete  and  the  Manxman 
that  Indians  to-da)'  make  the  best  shearers, 
being  crafty  hand-workers  and  possessed  of 
the  communal  instinct,  likino^  to  work  and  to 
loaf  in  company.  Under  the  social  stimulus 
they  turn  out  an  astonishing  number  of  well- 
clipped  muttons.  Round  the  half  moon  of  the 
lower  San  Joaquin  the  Mexicans  are  almost 
the  only  shearers  to  be  had,  and  even  the  men 


36  THE    FLOCK 

who  employ  them  credit  them  with  the  greatest 
fertility  in  excuses  for  quitting  work. 

All  the  lost  weathers  of  romance  collect 
between  the  ranges  of  the  San  Joaquin,  like 
old  galleons  adrift  in  purple,  open  spaces  of 
Sargasso,  Shearing  weather  is  a  derelict  from 
the  time  of  Admetus;  gladness  comes  out  of 
the  earth  and  exhales  light.  It  has  its  note, 
too,  in  pipings  of  the  Dauphinoises,  seated  on 
the  ground  with  gilias  coming  up  between 
their  knees  while  the  flutes  remember  France. 
Under  the  low,  false  firmament  of  cloud,  pools 
of  luminosity  collect  in  interlacing  shallows  of 
the  hills.  /Here  in  one  of  those  gentle  swales 
where  sheep  were  always  meant  to  be,  a  ewe 
covers  her  belated  lamb,  or  has  stolen  out  from 
the  wardship  of  the  dogs  to  linger  until  the 
decaying  clot  of  bones  and  hide,  which  was 
once  her  young,  dissolves  into  its  essences.  The 
flock  from  which  she  strayed  feeds  toward  the 
flutter  of  a  white  rag  on  the  hilltop  that  sig- 
nals a  shearing  going  on  in  the  clear  space  of 
a  canon  below.  Plain  on  the  skyline  with  his 
sharp-eared  dogs  the  herder  leans  upon  his 
staff. 


A    SHEARING  ^i 

> 

/  As  many  owners  will  combine  for  a  shear- 
ing as  can  feed  their  flocks  in  the  contiguous 
pastures.  At  Noriega's  this  year  there  were 
twenty-eight  thousand  head.  Noriega's  camp 
and  corrals  lie  in  the  canon  of  Poso  Creek 
where  there  is  a  well  of  one  burro  power,  for 
at  this  season  the  rains  have  not  unlocked  the 
sources  of  the  stream.  Hills  march  around  it, 
shrubless,  treeless ;  scarps  of  the  Sierras  stand 
up  behind.  Tents  there  are  for  stores,  but  all 
the  operations  of  the  camp  are  carried  on  out 
of  doors.  Confessedly  or  not,  the  several  sorts 
of  men  who  have  to  do  with  sheep  mutually 
despise  one  another.  Therefore  the  shearing 
crew  has  its  own  outfit,  distinct  from  the  camp 
of  the  hired  herders. 

Expect  the  best  cooking  and  the  worst 
smells  at  the  camp  of  the  French  shepherds. 
It  smells  of  mutton  and  old  cheese,  of  onions 
and  claret  and  garlic  and  tobacco,  sustained 
and  pervaded  by  the  smell  of  sheep.  This  is 
the  acceptable  holiday  smell,  for  when  the  far- 
called  flocks  come  in  to  the  shearing  then  is 
the  only  playtime  the  herder  knows.  Then 
if  ever  he  gets  a  blink  at  a  pretty  girl,  ciaret. 


38  THE    FLOCK 

and  bocie  at  Vivian's,  or  a  game  of  hand-ball 
at  Noriega's,  played  with  the  great  shovel- 
shaped  gloves  that 
are  stamped  with 
the  name  of  Pam- 
plona to  remind 
him  of  home.  But 
by  the  smell  chiefly 
you  should  know 
something  of  the 
man  whose  camp  you  have  come  on  unawares. 
When  you  can  detect  cheese  at  a  dozen  yards 
presume  a  Frenchman,  but  a  leather  wine  bot- 
tle proves  him  a  Basque,  garlic  and  onions 
without  cheese,  a  Mexican,  and  the  absence  of 
all  these  one  of  the  variable  types  that  calls 
itself  American. 

The  shearing  sheds  face  one  side  of  the 
corrals  and  runways  by  which  the  sheep  are 
passed  through  a  chute  to  the  shearers.  The 
sheds,  of  which  there  may  be  a  dozen,  accom- 
modate five  or  six  shearers,  and  are,  according 
to  the  notion  of  the  owner,  roofed  and  hung 
with  canvas  or  lightly  built  of  brush  and 
blanket  rairs.     Outside  runs  a  slielf  where  the 


A    SHEARING  39 

packers  tie  the  wool.  One  of  them  stands  at 
every  shed  with  his  tie-box  and  a  hank  of  tie- 
cord  wound  about  his  body.  This  tie-box  is 
merely  a  wooden  frame  of  tlie  capacity  of  one 
fleece,  notched  to  hold  the  cord,  which,  once 
adjusted,  can  be  tightened  with  a  jerk  and  a 
hitch  or  two,  making  the  fleece  into  a  neat, 
square  bundle  weighing  six  to  ten  pounds  as 
the  clip  runs  light  or  heavy.  Besides  these, 
there  must  go  to  a  full  shearing  crew  two 
men  to  handle  the  wool  sacks  and  one  to  sit 
on  the  packed  fleeces  and  keep  tally  as  the 
shearer  cries  his  own  number  and  the  number 
of  his  sheep,  betraying  his  country  by  his 
tongue. 

"  Nutnero  iieuf^  onze  !  "  sings  the  shearer. 

'■''  Numero  neiif,  onze  !''  drones  the  marker. 

"  Cinco  ;  vicnte  !  " 

"  Numero  cinco  ;  viente  !  tally." 

I  have  heard  Little  Pete  keep  tally  in  three 
languages  at  once. 

The  day's  work  begins  stiffly,  little  laughter, 
and  the  leisurely  whet  of  shears.  The  pulse 
of  work  rises  with  the  warmth,  the  crisp  bite 
of  the  blades,  the  rustle  and  scamper  of  sheep 


40 


THE    FLOCK 


in  the  corral  beat  into  rhythm  with  the  bent 
backs  rising  and  stooping  to  the  incessant 
cry,  ''  Ntiniei^o  diez,  triente  !  "  "  Number  ten, 
tally ! "  closing  full  at  noon  with  the  clink  of 
canteens.  Afternoon  sees  the  sweat  dripping 
and  a  freer  accompaniment  of  talk,  drowned 
again  in  the  rising  fever  of  work  at  the  turn  of 
the  day,  after  which  the  smell  of  cooking  be- 
gins  to   climb   above   the   smells   of    the   cor- 

rals.    A  man  wipes  his 
shears  on   his  overalls 
and    hangs    them    up 
when   he   has   clipped 
the  forty  or  fifty  sheep 
that   his   wage,  neces- 
sity, or  his  reputation 
demands  of  him. 
[   Two  men  can  sack 
the  wool  of  a  thousand 
sheep  in  a  day,  though 
their  contrivances  are 
the  simplest, — a  frame 
tall  enough  to  be  taller  than  a  wool  sack,  which 
is  once  and  a  half  as  tall  as  Little   Pete,  an 
iron  ring  over  which  the  wetted  mouth  of  the 


A    SHEARING  41 

sack  is  turned  and  so  held  fast  to  the  top  of 
the  frame,  a  pole  to  support  the  weight  of  the 
sack  while  the  packer  sews  it  up.  Once  the 
sack  is  adjusted,  with  ears  tied  in  the  bottom 
corners  over  a  handful  of  wool,  the  bundled 
fleeces  are  tossed  up  into  it  and  trampled  close 
by  the  packer  as  the  sack  fills  and  fills.  The 
pole  works  under  the  frame  like  an  ancient 
wellsweep,  hoisting  the  three  hundred  pound 
weight  of  wool  while  the  packer  closes  the 
top. 

For  the  reason  why  wool  shears  are  ground 
dull  at  the  point,  and  for  knowing  about  the 
yolk  of  the  wool,  I  commend  you  to  Noriega 
or  Little  Pete  ;  this  much  of  a  shearing  is  their 
business  ;  the  rest  of  it  is  romance  and  my 
province. 

The  far-called  flocks  come  in  ;  Raymundo 
has  climbed  to  the  top  of  the  wool  sack  tower 
and  spies  for  the  dust  of  their  coming ;  dust 
in  the  east  against  the  roan-colored  hills;  dust 
in  the  misty,  blue  ring  of  the  west;  high  dust 
under  Breckenrido^e  floatino:  across  the  banked 
poppy  fires;  flocks  moving  on  the  cactus-grown 
mesa.   Now  they  wheel,  and  the  sun  shows  them 


42  THE    FLOCK 

white  and  newly  shorn ;  there  passes  the  band 
of  Jean  Moynier,  shorn  yesterday.  Northward 
the  sagebrush  melts  and  stirs  in  a  stream  of 
moving  shadow. 

"  That,"  sa3^s  Raymundo,  "  should  be 
Etienne  Picquard;  when  he  goes,  he  goes  fast; 
when  he  rests,  he  rests  altogether.  Now  he 
shall  pay  me  for  that  crook  he  had  of  me  last 
year." 

"  Look  over  against  the  spotted  hill,  there 
by  the  white  scar,"  says  a  little  red  man  who 
has  just  come  in.    "  See  you  anything }  " 

"  Buzzards  flying  over,"  says  Raymundo 
from  the  sacking  frame. 

"  By  noon,  then,  you  should  see  a  flock 
coming;  it  should  be  White  Mountain  Joe.  I 
passed  him  Tuesday.  He  has  a  cougar's  skin, 
the  largest  ever.  Four  nights  it  came,  and 
on  the  fourth  it  stayed." 

So  announced  and  forerun  by  word  of  their 
adventures  the  herders  of  the  Long  Trail 
come  in.  At  night,  like  kinsmen  met  in  hos- 
telries,  they  talk  between  spread  pallets  by  the 
dying  fires. 

"  You,  Octavieu,  you  think  you  are  the  only 


A    SHEARING  43 

one  who  has  the  ill  fortune,  you  and  your 
poisoned  meadows !  When  I  came  by  Oak 
Creek  I  lost  twoscore  of  my  lambs  to  the  forest 
ranger.  Twoscore  fat  and  well  grown.  We 
fed  along  the  line  of  the  Reserve,  and  the  flock 
scattered.  Ah,  how  should  I  know,  there  being 
no  monuments  at  that  place  !  They  went  but 
a  flock  length  over,  that  I  swear  to  you,  and 
the  ranger  came  riding  on  us  from  the  oaks 
and  charged  the  sheep ;  he  was  a  new  man 
and  a  fool  not  to  know  that  a  broken  flock 
travels  up.  The  more  he  ran  after  them  the 
farther  they  went  in  the  Reserve.  Twoscore 
lambs  were  lost  in  the  steep  rocks,  or  died  from 
the  running,  and  of  the  ewes  that  lost  their 
lambs  seven  broke  back  in  the  night,  and  I 
could  not  0-0  in  to  the  Reserve  to  hunt  them. 
And  how  is  that  for  ill  fortune  ?  You  with 
your  halfscore  of  scabby  wethers !  " 

Trouble  with  forest  rangers  is  a  fruitful 
topic,  and  brings  a  stream  of  invective  that  falls 
away  as  does  all  talk  out  of  doors  to  a  note 
of  humorous  large  content.  Jules  upbraids  his 
collie  tenderly :  — 

"So  you  would  run  away  to  the  town,  eh. 


44  THE    FLOCK 

and  get  a  beating  for  your  pains;  you  are  well 
served,  you  misbegotten  son  of  a  thief !  Know 
you  not  there  is  none  but  old  Jules  can  abide 
the  sight  of  you  ?  " 

Echenique  by  the  fire  is  beginning  a  bear 
story :  — 

"It  was  four  of  the  sun  when  he  came  upon 
me  where  I  camped  by  the  Red  Hill  north- 
ward from  Agua  Hedidnda  and  would  have 
taken  my  best  wether,  Duroc,  that  I  have 
raised  by  my  own  hand.  I,  being  a  fool,  had  left 
my  gun  at  Tres  Pinos  on  account  of  the  ran- 
gers. Eh,  I  would  not  have  cared  for  a  sheep 
more  or  less,  but  Duroc!  —  when  I  think  of 
that  I  go  at  him  with  my  staff,  for  I  am  seven 
times  a  fool,  and  the  bear  he  leaves  the  sheep  to 
come  after  me.  Well  I  know  the  ways  of  bears, 
that  they  can  run  faster  than  a  man  up  a  hill 
or  down;  but  around  and  around,  that  is  where 
the  o^reat  wei2:ht  of  Monsieur  le  Bear  has  him 
at  fault.  So  long  as  you  run  with  the  side  of 
the  hill  the  bear  comes  out  below  you.  Now 
this  Red  Hill  where  I  am  camped  is  small,  that 
a  man  might  run  around  it  in  half  an  hour. 
So  I  run  and  the  bear  runs;  when  I  come  out 


A    SHEARING  45 

again  by  my  sheep  I  speak  to  the  dogs  that 
they  keep  them  close.  Then  I  run  around  and 
around,  and  this  second  time  —  Sacre  !  " 

He  gets  upon  his  feet  as  there  rises  a  sud- 
den scurry  from  the  flock,  turned  out  that 
evening  from  the  shearing  pens  and  bedded 
on  the  mesa's  edge,  yearning  toward  the  fresh 
feed.  Echenique  Hfts  up  his  staff  and  whistles 
to  his  dogs ;  like  enough  the  flock  will  move 
out  in  the  night  to  feed  and  the  herder  with 
him.  Not  until  they  meet  again  by  chance,  in 
.  the  summer  meadows,  will  each  and  several 
hear  the  end  of  the  bear  story.  So  they  re- 
count the  year's  work  by  the  shearing  fires, 
and  if  they  be  hirelings  of  different  owners, 
lie  to  each  other  about  the  feed.  Dogs  snug- 
gle to  their  masters ;  for  my  part  I  believe  they 
would  take  part  in  the  conversation  if  they 
fcould,  and  suffer  in  the  deprivation. 
>"|<o^;>^At— shearings  flocks  are  reorganized  for 
the  Long  Trail.  Wethers  and  non-productive 
ewes  are  cut  out  for  market,  vearlino-s  chano;e 
hands,  lambs  are  marked,  herders  outfitted. 
The  shearing  crew  which  has  begun  in  the 
extreme    southern    end    of    the  valley    passes 


46  THE    FLOCK 

north  on  the  trail  of  vanishing  snows  even  as 
far  as  Montana,  and  picks  up  the  fall  shearings, 
rounding  toward  home.  This  is  a  recent  pro- 
cedure. Once  there  was  time  enough  for  a 
fiesta  lasting  two  or  three  days,  or  at  the  least 
a  shearing  bailc.  I  remember  very  well  when 
at  Adobe,  before  the  wind  had  cleared  the  lit- 
ter of  fleeces,  they  would  be  riding  at  the  ring 
and  clinking  the  shearing  wage  over  cockfights 
and  monte.  Toward  nightfall  from  somewhere 
in  the  blue-and-white  desertness,  music  of  gui- 
tars floated  in  the  prettiest  girls  in  the  com- 
pany of  limber  vaqueros,  clinking  their  spurs 
and  shaking  from  their  hair  the  shining  crease 
where  the  heavy  sombrero  had  rested.  Middle- 
aged  senoras  wound  their  fat  arms  in  their 
rebosas  and  sat  against  the  wall ;  blue  smoke 
of  cigarettes  began  to  sway  with  the  strum  of 
the  plucked  guitar;  cascarones  w^ould  fly  about, 
breaking  in  bright  tinsel  showers.  O,  the  sound 
of  the  mandolin,  and  the  rose  in  the  senorita's 
hair  !  What  is  it  in  the  Castilian  strain  that 
makes  it  possible  for  a  girl  to  stick  a  rose  be- 
hind her  ear  and  cause  you  to  forget  the  smell 
of  garlic  and  the  reck  of  unwashed  walls  ? 


A    SHEARING  47 

Along  about  the  middle  hours,  heaves  up, 
heralded  by  soft  clinkings  and  girding  of  broad 
tires,  the  freighter's  twenty-eight-mule  team. 
The  teamsters,  who  have  pushed  their  fagged 
animals  miles  beyond  their  daily  stunt  to  this 
end,  drop  the  reins  to  the  swamper  and  whirl 
with  undaunted  freshness  to  the  dance.  As 
late  as  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning  you  could 
still  see  their  ruddy  or  freckled  faces  glowing 
above  the  soft,  dark  heads.  Though  if  }'ou  had 
sheep  in  charge  you  could  hardly  have  stayed 
so  long.  Outside  so  far  that  the  light  that 
rays  from  the  crevices  of  the  bursting  doors  of 
Adobe  is  no  brighter  than  his  dying  fire,  the 
herder  lies  with  his  sheep,  and  by  the  time  the 
bleached  hollows  of  the  sands  collect  shadows 
tenuous  and  blue,  has  begun  to  move  his  flock 
toward  the  much  desired  Sierra  pastures. 


IV 


p 

THE    HIRELING    SHEPHERD  — 

WITH     SOME     ACCOUNT     OF     HOW     HE 

J\ 

HAS    BECOME    AX    A P.OMl NATION,    AND 

f 

OF     THE     :\IEN     WHO     HIRE     HIM 

CHAPTER   IV 


THE    HIRELING    SHEPHERD 


"  And  now,"  says  the  interlocutor,  "  tell  me 
what  led  you  first  to  this  business  of  sheep  ? " 
That  was  at  Little  Pete's  shearing  at  Big 
Pine,  a  mile  below  the  town  ;  a  wide  open  day 
of  May,  dahlia  coming  into  bloom  and  blue 
gilias  quavering  in  the  tight  shadows  under  the 
saore.  Pete  had  been  showintj  me  the  use  of  a 
shepherd's  crook,  not  nearly  so  interesting  as 
it  sounds.  He  hooked  it  under  the  hind  leg 
of  a  wether  and  drew  him  into  the  shearing 


52  THE   FLOCK 

pen ;  now  he  leaned  upon  its  long  handle  as 
on  a  staff. 

"In  Aries  where  I  was  born,  by  the  Rhone," 
said  Pete,  "  my  father  kept  sheep," 

"  And  you  were  put  to  the  minding  of 
them  ?  " 

"  As  a  boy.  We  drove  them  to  the  Alps  in 
summer,  I  remember  ver)^  well.  We  went  be- 
tween the  fenced  pastures,  feeding  every  other 
day  and  driving  at  night.  In  the  dark  we 
heard  the  bells  ahead  and  slept  upon  our  feet. 
Myself  and  another  herd  boy,  we  tied  our- 
selves together  not  to  wander  from  the  road. 
We  slept  upon  our  feet  but  kept  moving  to  the 
bells.  This  is  truth  that  I  tell  you.  Whenever 
shepherds  from  the  Rhone  are  met  about 
camps  in  the  Sierras  they  will  be  talking  of 
how  they  slept  upon  their  feet  and  followed 
after  the  bells." 

There  was  a  clump  of  crimson  mallow  at 
the  corner  of  the  shearing  corral.  I  remem- 
bered what  the  Indians  had  told  me  in  this 
sandy  waste,  that  where  the  mallow  grew  they 
digged  and  found,  if  no  more,  at  least  a  hand- 
ful of  plastic  clay  for  making  pots.    That  was 


THE    HIRELING    SHEPHERD  53 

like  any  statement  of  Pete's  ;  if  you  looked  for 
it,  there  was  always  a  good  lump  of  romance 
about  its  roots. 

"All  that  country  about  the  Rhone,"  he 
said,  "  is  of  fields  and  pastures,  and  the  Alps 
hang  above  them  like  clouds.  Meadows  of  the 
Sierras  are  green,  but  not  so  green  as  the  little 
fields  of  France  when  we  went  between  them 
with  the  flocks.  We  fed  for  three  months  in 
the  high  pastures,  and  for  idleness  wove  gar- 
ters in  curious  patterns  of  woolen  thread,  red 
and  green  and  blue.  Yes  ;  for  our  sweethearts, 
they  wore  them  on  holidays.  But  here  it  seems 
a  garter  is  not  to  be  mentioned." 

"  And  you  came  to  America  ?  " 

"  Yes ;  there  were  changes,  and  I  had  heard 
that  there  was  free  pasture,  and  money —  Eh, 
yes,  it  passes  freely  about,  but  there  is  not 
much  that  sticks  to  the  fins^ers."  Pete  shunted 
the  dodge-gate  in  the  pens  and  searched  the 
horizon  for  the  dust  of  his  flocks. 

"And  you,  Enscaldunac  .<*  " 

The  Basco  lifted  his  shoulders  and  folded 
his  arms  above  his  staff. 

"  In   the   Pyrenees    my  father   keep   sheep, 


54  THE    FLOCK 

his  father  keep  sheep,  his  father  "  —  He  threw 
out  his  hands  inimitably  across  the  shifting 
shoulders  of  the  flock  ;  it  was  as  if  he  had  di- 
rected the  imagination  over  a  backward  stretch 
of  time,  that  showed  to  its  far  diminishing  end 
generations  of  small,  hairy  men,  keeping 
sheep. 

"  It  is  soon  told,"  said  Sanger,  his  voice 
halting  over  some  forgotten  burr  of  speech, 
"how  I  began  to  be  interested  in  sheep. 

"  It  was  in  Germany  when  I  was  a  boy. 
Everyman  has  two  or  three  head  in  his  stable, 
and  there  will  be  one  herd  boy  to  the  village  ; 
he  leads  them  out  to  feed,  and  home  at  night. 
Every  sheep  knows  its  ow-n  fold.  They  are 
like  dogs  returning  to  the  doorstep  when  they 
come  in  at  night,  and  in  the  morning  they 
bleat  at  the  voice  of  the  herd  boy.  But  here 
we  run  two  and  three  thousand  to  the  flock." 

The  Manxman,  when  the  question  was  put 
to  him,  laid  the  tios  of  his  thin  fino-ers  tosfether 
deliberatively,  between  his  knees. 

"  Well,  I  be<ran  workina^  a  shearinsf  crew, 
my  brother  and  I,  but,  you  see,  in  the  Isle  o' 
Man  "  —  What  more  would  you  have  ?    Once 


THE    HIRELING    SHEPHERD  55 

a  man  has  been  put  to  the  care  of  sheep  he 
reverts  to  it  in  any  turn  of  his  affairs  Hke 
mavericks  to  old  water  holes.  And  if  he  would 
keep  out  of  the  business,  he  must  keep  strictly 
away  from  the  smell  of  the  dust  they  beat  up 
on  the  trail  and  the  familiar  blether  of  the 
flock.  Narcisse  Duplin,  who  used  regularly  to 
damn  the  business  in  October  and  sell  out,  and 
as  regularly  buy  again  in  February,  told  me 
this,  and  told  at  the  same  time  of  a  certain 
banker  in  an  inland  town  who  had  made  his 
money  in  sheep  and  was  now  ashamed  of  it, 
who  kept  a  cosset  ewe  in  his  back  yard.  There 
used  to  be  at  Tres  Pinos  a  man  who  had  sold 
two  thousand  wethers  and  a  thousand  ewes,  to 
buy  a  little  shop  where  he  could  sell  lentils 
and  claret  and  copper-riveted  overalls  to  the 
herders  going  by  on  the  Long  Trail.  But  he 
never  came  to  any  good  in  it,  for  the  reason 
that  when  trade  should  be  busiest  at  the  semi- 
annual passage  of  the  flocks,  he  would  be  out 
walking  after  the  sheep  in  the  smell  and  the 
bitter  dust. 

That  most  sheep-herders  are  foreigners  ac- 
counts largely  for  the  abomination   in   which 


56  THE    FLOCK 

they  are  held  and  the  prejudice  that  attaches 
to  the  term.  American  owners  prefer  to  be 
called  wool  growers,  but  it  is  well  to  be  exactly 
informed.  The  Frenchmen  call  themselves 
dcrgers,  the  Mexicans  boregeros,  the  Basques 
artzainas,  of  all  which  shepherd  is  the  exact 
equivalent.  Sheep-herder  is  a  pure  colloquial- 
ism of  the  man  outside  and  should  not  be  made 
to  stand  for  more  than  it  includes.  The  best 
terms  of  a  trade  are  to  be  found  among  the 
men  who  live  by  it,  and  these  are  their  proper 
distinctions  :  The  owner  or  wool  grower  sits  at 
home,  and  seldom  seeing  his  flocks  sends  them 
out  under  a  head  shepherd  or  major-domo ;  a 
shepherd  is  an  owner  who  travels  with  the 
flock,  with  or  without  herders,  overseeing  and 
directing;  the  sheep-herder  is  merely  a  hire- 
ling who  works  the  flock  in  its  year-long  pas- 
sage from  shearing  to  shearing. 

This  is  the  first  estate  of  most  sheepmen. 
The  herder  runs  a  flock  for  a  year  or  two  for 
a  daily  wage  of  tobacco  and  food  and  a  dol- 
lar, and  if  he  has  no  family,  fifty  dollars  is  as 
much  as  he  finds  occasion  to  spend  upon  him- 
self.   Then  he  takes  pay  in  a  bunch  of  ewes 


THE    HIRELING    SHEPHERD  57 

and  runs  them  with  his  master's  flock.  With 
the  year's  increase  he  unites  with  some  other 
small  owner,  and  puts  his  knowledge  of  pas- 
tures to  the  proof.  After  this  his  affairs  are  in 
the  hands  of  the  Little  Gods  of  Rain.  Three  or 
four  successive  dry  years  return  him  "  broke  " 
to  the  estate  of  herding  ;  the  same  number  of 
years  of  abundant  wetness  make  him  a  wool 
grower. 

Notable  owners,  such  as  Watterson,  Olcese, 
Sanger,  and  Harry  Quinn  of  Rag  Gulch,  think 
themselves  not  much  occupied  with  romance. 
They  improve  the  breeds,  conserve  the  natural 
range,  multiply  contrivances.  At  Rag  Gulch 
there  is  a  cemented  vat  for  dipping  sheep,  and 
at  Button  Willow  they  have  set  up  wool-clip- 
ping machines,  —  but  as  for  me,  the  dust  of 
the  shuffling  hoofs  is  in  my  eyes.  As  it  rises 
on  the  trail  one  perceives  through  its  pale 
luminosity  the  social  order  struggling  into 
shape. 

Sanger,  when  he  drove  his  sheep  to  Mon- 
tana in  '70,  went  up  like  a  patriarch  with  his 
family  in  wagons,  his  dogs  and  his  herders, 
his  milch  cows,  his  saddle  horses,  and  his  sheep 


58 


THE    FLOCK 


in  bands.  When  they  came  by  Hving  springs, 
there  they  pitched  the  camp  ;  when  they  found 
fresh  pastures,  there  they  halted.  But  on  the 
Long  Trail  the  herders  go  out  with  a  little 
burro  to  pack,  with  a  lump  of  salt  pork  and 

a  bag  of  lentils,  a 
bunch  of  garlic, 
a  frying  pan,  and 
a  pot,  with  two  or 
three  dogs  and  a 
cat  to  ride  on  top  of 
the  cayaques  and 
clear  the  camp  of 
mice.  After  them  comes  the  head  shepherd  in 
a  stout-built  wagon.  Met  on  the  county  roads, 
he  is  to  be  distinguished  from  the  farmers  by 
the  sharp  noses  of  the  dogs  thrust  out  between 
his  feet,  and  by  the  appearance  of  having  on 
too  many  clothes  and  the  clothes  not  belong- 
ing to  him.  Nothing  sets  so  ill  on  the  man 
from  outdoors  as  the  ready-made  suit.  On  the 
range  in  a  blouse  loose  at  the  throat,  belted 
with  a  wisp  of  sheepskin  or  a  bright  handker- 
chief, these  shepherd  folk  show  to  be  admi- 
rably built,  the  bodies   columnar,  the    chests 


THE    HIRELING    SHEPHERD  59 

brawny,  the  reach  of  the  arms  extraordinary, 
the  hands  not  calloused  but  broadened  at  the 
knuckles  by  the  constant  grip  of  the  staff. 

Of  the  other  sorts  of  men  having  to  do  with 
sheep  there  are  not  many  who  merit  much  at- 
tention. These  are  the  buyers  who  seek  out 
the  flocks  on  the  range,  and  fortified  by  a 
secret  knowledge  of  the  market  fluctuations, 
bargain  for  the  mutton  and  the  fleeces.  Having 
paid  to  the  shepherd,  as  earnest  of  their  inten- 
tion, the  cost  of  driving  the  flock  at  a  given 
time  to  the  point  of  transportation,  they  melt 
away  by  the  main  traveled  roads,  and  the  herder 
knows  them  no  more.  The  real  focus  of  the 
sheep  business  in  any  district  is  to  be  found  in 
some  such  friendly  concern  as  the  house  of 
Olcese  and  Ardizzi,  who  make  good  in  the 
terms  of  modernity  the  very  old  rule  that  one 
Frenchman  is  always  worth  being  trusted  by 
another.  Hardly  any  who  go  up  across  my 
country  but  have  been  lifted  by  them  through 
their  bad  years  by  credits  and  supplies,  and  the 
inestimable  advantao^e  that  comes  to  a  man  in 
knowing:  his  word  is  esteemed  2;ood. 

Once  for  all  the  French  herders  in  America 


6o  THE   FLOCK 

shall  have  in  me  a  faithful  recorder.  You  may 
call  a  Frenchman  a  Gascon,  which  is  to  say  a 
liar,  and  escape  punishment ;  but  you  really 
must  not  confound  him  with  a  Basque.  Un- 
derstand that  all  the  Pyreneeans  of  my  ac- 
quaintance are  straight  folk  and  likable,  but 
if  you  lay  all  the  evils  of  shepherding  at  the 
doors  of  those  I  do  not  know,  you  will  have 
some  notion  of  how  they  are  esteemed  of  the 
French. 

When  on  the  mesa  or  about  the  edges  of 
a  gentian-spattered  meadow  you  come  upon  a 
still  camp  with  "  Consuelo,"  the  "  Fables  of  La 
Fontaine,"  or  Michelet's  "  Histoire  de  France" 
lying  about  among  the  cooking  pots,  it  is  well 
to  wait  until  the  herder  comes  home.  In  seven- 
teen years  I  have  found  nobody  better  w^orth 
than  Little  Pete  to  discuss  French  literature. 
This  is  that  Pierre  Geraud  who  has  the 
meadow  of  Coyote  Valley  and  the  ranch  at 
Tinnemaha;  a  man  who  gives  the  impression 
that  he  has  made  himself  a  little  less  than 
large  for  convenience  in  getting  about,  of  such 
abundant  vitality  and  elasticity  that  he  gives 
back  largely  to  the  lightest  touch.    He  knows 


THE    HIRELING   SHEPHERD  6i 

how  to  put  information  in  its  most  pregnant 
shape,  though  I  am  not  sure  it  is  because  he 
is  a  Frenchman  or  because  he  is  a  shepherd. 

Once  you  get  speech  with  them,  of  all  out- 
door folk  the  minders  of  flocks  arc  the  most 
fruitful  talkers ;  better  at  it  than  cowboys,  next 
best  after  forest  rangers.  The  constant  flux 
from  the  estate  of  owner  to  hirelins:  makes 
them  philosophers  ;  all  outdoors  contrives  to 
nourish  the  imagination,  and  they  have  in  full 
what  we  oftenest  barely  brush  wings  with,  ele- 
mental human  experiences. 

Once  in  the  Temblors,  a  wild  bulk  of  hills 
westward  from  San  Emigdio,  I  knew  a  herder 
who  had  called  a  woman  from  one  of  the  wat- 
tled huts  sprawled  in  a  brown  caiion  ;  she  an- 
swering freely  to  the  call  as  the  quail  to  the 
piping  of  its  mate.  She  was  slim  and  brown, 
and  points  of  amber  flame  swam  in  her  quiet 
eyes.  They  went  up  unweariedly  by  faint  old 
trails  and  felt  the  earth-pulse  under  them. 
They  shook  the  unregarded  rain  from  their 
eyes,  and  sat  together  in  a  wordless  sweet  com- 
panionship through  endless  idle  noons.  After- 
ward when  she  grew  heavy  he  set  her  Madonna- 


62 


THE    FLOCK 


wise  on  a  burro,  he  holding  the  leading  strap 
and  she  smiling  at  him  in  a  large  content. 
Well  —  but  what  is  marriage  exactly  ? 


Understand  that  the  actual  manas^ement  of 
a  flock  on  the  range  is  never  a  "  white  man's 
job."    Those    so    describing    themselves    who 

maybe  hired  to 
it  are  the  im- 
possibles, men 
who  work  a  lit- 
tle in  order  to 
drink  a  great 
deal,  returning 
to  the  flock  in 
such  a  condition 
of  disrepair  that 
their  own  dogs 
do  not  know 
them. 

Of  the  twoscore  shepherds  who  pass  and 
repass  between  Naboth's  field  and  the  foot 
of  Kearsarge,  most  are  French,  then  Basque, 
Mexican^  and  a  Portuguese  or  two.  Once  I 
found  a  Scotchman  sitting  on  a  fallen  plinth 


THE   HIRELING    SHEPHERD  63 

of  the  Black  Rock  below  Little  Lake  ;  I  knew 
he  was  Scotch  because  he  was  knitting  and 
he  would  not  talk.  There  was  an  Indian  who 
worked  for  Joe  Espelier,  —  but  in  general  the 
Indian  loves  society  too  much  to  make  a  nota- 
ble herder,  and  the  Mexican  has  a  difificulty  in 
remembering  that  the  claims  of  his  employer 
are  superior  to  the  obligations  of  hospitality. 
Gervaise  told  me  that  when  he  ran  thirty  thou- 
sand merinos  in  New  Mexico  he  used  to  deal 
out  supplies  in  day's  rations,  otherwise  he 
would  be  feeding  all  his  herders'  relations  and 
relations-in-law. 

It  is  said  of  the  Devil  that  he  spent  seven 
years  in  learning  the  Basque  language  and 
acquired  but  three  words  of  it,  and  offered  in 
corroboration  that  the  people  of  the  Pyrenees 
called  themselves  Enscaldunac,  "  the  people 
with  a  speech."  I  believe  myself  these  Bascos 
are  a  little  proud  of  the  foolish  gaspings  and 
gutterings  by  which  they  prevent  an  under- 
standing, and  contribute  to  the  unfounded  as- 
sumption that  most  sheep-herders  are  a  little 
insane.  This  sort  of  opprobrium  is  always  cast 
upon  unfamiliar  manners  by  the  sorts  of  peo- 


64  THE    FLOCK 

pie  who  meet  oftenest  with  shepherd  folk, — 
cowboys,  homesteaders,  provincials  with  little 
imagination  and  no  social  experience.  When- 
ever it  is  possible  to  bridge  the  prejudice  which 
isolates  the  herder  from  the  servants  of  other 
affairs,  what  first  appears  is  that  the  grazing 
ground  is  the  prize  of  a  little  war  that  requires 
for  its  successful  issue  as  much  foresightedness 
and  knowledge  of  technique  as  goes  propor- 
tionately to  other  business,  so  that  a  man 
might  much  more  easily  go  insane  under  its 
perplexities  than  for  the  want  of  employment 
that  is  oftenest  imputed.  Nor  does  shepherd- 
ing lack  a  sustaining  morale  in  the  occasions 
it  affords  for  devotion  to  the  interests  of  the 
employer.  And  this  presents  itself  in  any 
knowledgeable  report  of  their  relations  that, 
in  a  business  carried  on  so  far  from  the  own- 
er's eye,  nothing  could  be  possible  without  an 
extraordinary  degree  of  dependableness  in  the 
hireling. 

Not  that  the  leash  of  reason  does  not  occa- 
sionally slip  in  the  big  wilderness  ;  there  was 
Jean  Lambert,  who  in  a  succession  of  dry  years 
found  himself  so  harassed  by  settlers  and  cattle- 


THE    HIRELING    SHEPHERD  65 

men  occupying  his  accustomed  ground  and 
defending  them  with  guns  and  strategies,  that 
he  conceived  the  ver)'-  earth  and  sky  in  league 
against  him,  and  was  found  at  last  roaring  about 
a  dry  meadow,  holding  close  his  starved  flock 
and  defying  the  Powers  of  the  Air.  Once  there 
was  a  Portuguese  herder  misled  by  false  monu- 
ments in  the  Coso  country,  without  water  for 
three  days,  discovered  witless  and  happy,  bath- 
ing nakedly  in  the  waters  of  mirage.  But  there 
were  also  miners  in  that  county  and  teamsters 
whom  the  land  made  mad ;  indeed,  what  occupa- 
tion fends  us  from  thirst  and  desertness  ?  I  hand 
you  up  these  things  as  they  w^ere  told  to  me,  for 
such  as  these  always  occur  in  some  other  place, 
like  Arizona  or  New  Mexico  where  almost  any- 
r  thing  might  happen.  With  all  my  seeking  into 
^  desert  places  there  are  three  things  that  of  my 
own  knowledge  I  have  not  seen,  —  a  man  who 
has  rediscovered  a  lost  mine,  the  heirs  of  one 
who  died  of  the  bite  of  a  sidewinder,  and  a 
shepherd  who  is  insane. 

The  loneliness  imputed  by  the  town-bred  is 
not  so  in  fact.  Almost  invariably  two  men  are 
put  to  a  flock,  and  these  are  seldom  three  days 


66  THE    FLOCK 

together  out  of  touch  with  the  owner  or  head 
shepherd  who,  travehng  with  supphes,  directs 
several  bands  at  once,  baking  bread,  replenishing 
the  outfit,  spying  ahead  for  fresh  pastures,  and 
purveying  news.  This  necessity  for  renewing 
contact  at  given  places  and  occasions  points  the 
labor  of  the  herder  and  supplies  a  companiona- 
ble touch.  Herders  of  different  owners  meet  on 
the  rano^e  and  exchangee  misinformation  about 
the  feed  ;  lately  also  they  defame  the  forest 
rangers.  Returning  in  the  fall,  before  under- 
taking the  desert  drive,  they  turn  into  the  alfalfa 
fields  about  Oak  Creek  and  below  Williamson 
and  Lone  Pine.  Here  while  the  flock  fattens 
they  make  camps  of  ten  or  a  dozen ;  here  in 
long  twilights  they  sing  and  romp  boyishly 
with  the  dogs,  and  here  the  wineskin  goes  about. 
These  goatskin  bottles  with  the  hair  inside 
come  from  Basqueland  and  are  held  by  the 
possessors  to  give  an  unrivaled  flavor  to  the 
weak  claret  drunk  in  camp.  When  a  company 
of  Basque  herders  are  met  about  the  fire, 
in  the  whole  of  a  lono;  eveninc:  the  wineskin 
does  not  touch  the  ground.  Each  man  receives 
it  from  his  neighbor,  holds  it  a  foot  away  from 


THE    HIRELING    SHEPHERD  dj 

his  face,  deftly  wets  his  throat  with  a  thin,  pink 
stream  squirted  through  the  horn  tip,  hands  it 
about  and  about,  singing. 

After  sundown  in  the  stilhiess  of  high  valleys 
the  sound  of  an  accordion  carries  far.  When 
it  croons  wheezily  over  a  love  song  of  the  sev- 
enteenth century,  it  is  worth  following  to  its 
point  of  issue  beside  the  low  flare  of  the  brush- 
wood fire  with  the  shepherds  seated  round  it 
on  the  ground.  There  you  will  hear  roundels 
and  old  ballades,  perhaps  a  new  one  begin- 
ning, — 

"A  shepherd  there  was  of  Gascony, 
A  glutton,  a  drunkard,  a  liar  was  he, 
A  rascal,  a  thief,  and  a  Blasphemer, 
The  worst  in  the  whole  round  world  I  aver  ; 
Who,  seeing  the  master  had  left  him  alone, 
He  gave  the  coyotes  the  lambs  for  their  own, 
He  left  the  poor  dogs  to  watch  over  the  sheep 
And  down  by  the  wine  cask  he  laid  him  asleep." 

It  goes  much  more  swingingly  than  that  in 
the  original,  which,  if  you  wish,  you  can  get 
from  Little  Pete,  who  made  it. 


V 


THE   LONG  TRAIL  — 

HOW  IT  WAS  DEFINED, 
WHAT  GOES  ON  IN  IT, 
AND  HOW  THE  DAV's 
WORK.  IS  ACCOMPLISHED. 


CHAPTER   V 


THE    LONG    TRAIL 


Toward  the  end  of  spring  in  the  wide  Cahfor- 
nia  valleys,  night  begins  close  along  the  ground, 
as  if  it  laired  by  day  in  the  shadows  of  the 
rabbit-brush  or  suspired  sleepily  from  thick, 
secret  sloughs.  At  that  hour  when  the  earth 
turns  as  if  from  the  red  eye  of  the  sun,  all  the 
effort  of  nature  seems  to  withdraw  attention 
from  its  adumbration  to  direct  it  toward  the 
ineffably  pure  vault  of  blueness  on  which  the 
clear  obscurity  that  shores  the  rim  of  the  world 
encroaches  late  or  not  at  all.    In  the  San  Joa- 


72  THE   FLOCK 

quin  there  will  be  nights  of  early  summer  when 
the  live  color  of  heaven  is  to  be  seen  at  all 
hours  beyond  the  earth's  penumbra,  darkling 
between  the  orderly  perspectives  of  the  stars. 
At  such  seasons  there  will  be  winking  in  the 
pellucid  gloom,  in  the  vicinity  of  shearing  sta- 
tions, a  hundred  camp  fires  of  men  who  have 
not  lost  the  sense  of  the  earth  being  good  to  lie 
down  upon.  They  have  moved  out  from  Fa- 
moso,  from  Delano,  Poso,  and  Caliente,  bound 
as  the  mind  of  the  head  shepherd  runs  for 
summer  pastures  as  far  north  as  may  be  con- 
veniently accomplished  between  shearing  and 
lambing ;  and  all  the  ways  of  their  going  and 
coming  make  that  most  notable  of  sheepwalks, 
the  Long  Trail. 

The  great  trunk  of  the  trail  lies  along  the  east 
slope  of  the  Sierra  Nevadas,  looping  through 
them  by  way  of  the  passes  around  Yosemite, 
or  even  as  far  north  as  Tahoe,  shaped  and  de- 
fined by  the  occasions  that  in  little  record  the 
progress  from  nomadism  to  the  commonwealth. 
Conceive  the  cimeter  blade  of  the  Sierra  curv- 
ing to  the  slow  oval  of  the  valley,  dividing  the 
rains,  clouds  herding  about   its  summits  and 


THE    LONG    TRAIL  73 

flocks  along  its  flanks,  their  approaches  ordered 
by  the  extension  and  recession  of  its  snows. 
The  common  necessities  of  the  sheep  business 
beat  it  into  a  kind  of  rhythm  as  early  even  as 
the  time  when  every  foot  of  this  country  was 
open  range.  Recurrently  as  the  hills  clothed 
themselves  with  white  wonder  the  shepherds 
turned  south  for  lambing,  and  as  surely  as 
bent  heather  recovers  from  the  drifts,  they 
sought  the  summer  pastures. 

The  down  plunge  of  the  Sierras  to  the  San 
Joaquin  is  prolonged  by  round-backed  droves 
of  hills,  and  the  westerly  trail  is  as  wide  as  a 
week  of  flock  journeys  ;  but  here  on  the  east 
you  have  the  long,  sharp  scar  where  Padahoon, 
the  little  hawk  who  made  it,  tore  the  range 
from  its  foundations  when  he  stole  that  terri- 
tory from  the  little  duck  who  brought  up  the 
stuff  for  its  building  from  the  bottom  of  the 
primordial  sea.  Here  the  trail  hugs  the  foot 
of  the  orreat  Sierra  fault  for  a  hundred  miles 

O 

through  the  knife-cut  valleys,  trending  no  far- 
ther desertvvard  than  the  scant  fling  of  winter 
rains,  and  even  here  it  began  soon  enough  to 
be  man-crowded. 


74  THE   FLOCK 

Wherever  the  waters  of  cloud-dividing  ridges 
issue  from  the  caiions,  steadying  their  swaying 
to  the  level  lands,  there  were  homesteads  es- 
tablished that  in  thirty  years  expanded  into  the 
irrio^ated  belt  that  limits  and  defines  the  rans^e 
of  sheep.  Not  without  a  struggle  though.  Be- 
tween the  herders  and  the  ranchers  the  impalpa- 
ble fence  of  the  law  had  first  to  externalize  itself 
in  miles  upon  miles  of  barbed  wire  to  accom- 
plish for  the  patented  lands  what  the  hair  rope 
is  supposed  to  do  for  the  teamster's  bed,  for  in 
the  early  eighties  there  was  no  vermin  so  pes- 
tiferous to  the  isolated  rancher  as  the  sheep. 
Finally  the  trail  was  mapped  by  the  viewless 
line  of  the  Forest  Reserve,  drawn  about  the  best 
of  the  w^atershed  and  so  narrowed  that  where  it 
passes  between  Kearsarge  and  Naboth's  field, 
where  my  house  is,  it  is  no  more  than  a  three- 
mile  strip  of  close-grazed,  social  shrubs. 

The  trail  begins  properly  at  the  Place  of  the 
Year  Long  Wind,  otherwise  Mojave.  Flocks 
pour  into  it  by  way  of  Tehachapi,  and  in  very 
dry  years  from  as  far  south  as  San  Gabriel  and 
San  Bernardino,  crowded  up  with  limping,  stark- 
ribbed  cattle.    In  the  spring  of  '94  they  were 


THE    LONC;    TRAIL 


driven  north  in  such  numbers  that  the  stajje 
road  between  Mojave  and  Red  Rock  was  trod- 
den indistinguishably  into  the  dust.  The  place 
where  it  had  been  was  mapped  in  the  u})per  air 
by  the  wide,  tilted  wings  of  scavengers  and  the 
crawling  dustheaps  below  them  on  the  sand, 
formless  blurs  for  the  sheep  and  long  snaking 
lines  of  steers  ;  for  horned  cattle  have  come 
so  much  nearer  the  man-mind  that  thev  love 
a  beaten  path.  Weeks 
on  end  the  black  gui- 
dons flapped  and  halt- 
ed in  the  high  currents 
of  the  furnace-heated 
air. 

Rolling  northward 
on  the  Mojave  stage, 
from  the  high  seat  be- 
side the  driver,  I  saw 
the  sick  hearts  of  cat- 
tlemen and  herders 
watch  through  swollen 
eyelids  the  third  and  then  the  half  of  their 
possessions  wasting  from  them  as  sand  slips 
through   the  fingers.    By  the   dry  wash  where 


76  THE  FLOCK 

they  buried  the  Chinaman  who  tried  to  walk 
in  from  Borax  Marsh  without  water,  we  saw 
Baptiste  the  Portuguese,  sitting  with  his  eyes 
upon  the  ground,  all  his  flock  cast  up  along  the 
bank,  and  his  hopes  with  them  like  the  waste 
of  rotting  leaves  among  the  bleached  boul- 
ders of  a  vanished  stream,  dying  upon  their 
feet. 

All  trails  run  together  through  Red  Rock, 
the  gorge  by  which  the  stage  road  climbs  to  the 
mesa.  There  is  a  water  hole  halfway  of  its 
wind-sculptured  walls ;  often  had  I  seen  it 
glimmering  palely  like  a  dead  eye  between 
lashless,  ruined  lids.  Crowded  into  the  defile 
at  noon,  for  at  that  time  we  made  the  first 
stage  of  the  journey  by  day,  a  band  of  black 
faces  added  the  rank  smell  of  their  fleeces  to 
the  choked  atmosphere.  The  light  above  the 
smitten  sands  shuddered  everywhere  with  heat. 
The  sheep  had  come  from  Antelope  Valley 
with  insufificient  feed  and  no  water  since 
Mojave,  and  had  waited  four  hours  in  the 
breathless  gully  for  the  watering  of  a  band  of 
cattle  at  the  flat,  turgid  well.  The  stage  pushed 
into  the  caiion  as  having  the  right  of  way,  for 


THE    LONG   TRAIL  j-j 

besides  passengers  we  carried  the  mail ;  the 
herder  spoke  to  the  dogs  that  they  open  the 
flock  to  let  us  pass.  They  and  the  sheep  an- 
swered heavily,  being  greatly  spent;  dumbly 
they  shuffled  from  the  road  and  closed  huddling 
behind,  as  clods.  For  an  interval  we  halted  in 
the  middle  of  the  band  until  one  of  the  horses 
snorted  back  upon  his  haunches  and  occasioned 
one  of  those  incidents  that,  whether  among 
sheep  or  men,  turn  us  sickeningly  from  the 
social  use  of  the  flock-mind.  The  band  becjan 
to  turn  upon  itself ;  those  scrambling  from  the 
horses  piled  up  upon  their  fellows  as  viewless 
shapes  of  thirst  and  fear  herded  them  inward 
to  the  suffocating  heap  that  sunk  and  shud- 
dered and  piled  again.  My  eyes  were  shut,  but 
I  heard  the  driver  swear  whispering  and  help- 
lessly for  the  brief  interval  that  we  could  not 
hear  the  gride  of  the  moving  wheels  upon  the 
sand.  Afterward  when  I  came  to  my  own  place 
I  watched  the  trail  long  for  the  passing  of  that 
herder  and  that  band,  to  inquire  how  they  had 
come  through,  —  but  they  iievei^ passed  ! 

Nothing,  absolutely  nothing,  say  the  herders, 
of  interest  or  profit  can  happen  to  a  flock  be- 


78  THE    FLOCK 

tween  Antelope  Valley  and  Haiwai  in  a  dry  year. 
It  is  the  breeding  place  of  little  dust  devils  that 
choose  the  moment  when  your  pot  lid  is  off,  or 
you  cool  your  broth  with  your  breath,  to  whisk 
up  surprisingly  out  of  stillness  with  rubbish 
and  bitter  dust  to  disorder  the  camp.  Foot- 
soreness,  loco-weed,  deadly  waters,  and  starva- 
tion establish  its  borders  ;  and  withal  no  possi- 
bility of  imputing  malignity.  It  is  not  that  the 
desert  would  destroy  men  and  flocks,  it  merely 
neglects  them.  When  they  fail  through  its 
sheer  inattention,  because  of  the  preoccupation 
of  its  own  beauty,  it  has  not  time  even  to  kill 
quickly.  Plainly  the  lord  of  its  luminous  great 
spaces  has  a  more  tremendous  notion,  not  to 
be  disturbed  for  starveling  ewe,  not  though 
the  bloomy  violet  glow  of  its  twilight  closes 
so  many  times  on  the  vulture  dropped  above 
it,  swinging  as  from  some  invisible  pendulum 
under  the  sky.  Lungren  showed  me  a  picture 
once,  of  a  man  and  a  horse  dead  upon  the 
desert,  painted  as  it  would  be  with  the  light 
breaking  upon  the  distended  bodies,  nebu- 
lously rainbow-hued  and  tender,  which  he  said 
hardly  anybody  liked.    How  should  they  ?    It  is 


THE    LONG    TRAIL  79 

still  hard  for  men  to  2:et  alonsf  with  God  for 
thinking  of  death  not  as  they  do. 

But  if  ever  spring  comes  to  the  Mojave,  and 
the  passage  of  spring  beyond  the  Sierra  wall 
is  a  matter  of  place  and  occasion  rather  than 
season,  there  is  no  more  tolerable  land  for  a 
flock  to  be  abroad  in.  This  year  it  came  and 
stayed  along  three  hundred  miles,  and  the  sheep 
grew  fat  and  improved  their  fleeces.  But  for 
the  insufificience  of  watering  places  a  hundred 
thousand  mio^ht  have  thriven  on  the  o-reat 
variety  of  grazing,  —  atriplexes,  dahlia,  tender 
young  lupines,  and  "  marrow-fat "  weed. 

As  many  shepherds  as  think  the  grudging 
permission  to  cross  the  Forest  Reserve  not  too 
dearly  paid  for  by  the  vexations  of  it,  bring 
their  sheep  up  by  way  of  Havilah  and  Green- 
horn through  Walker's  Pass.  As  many  as 
think  it  worth  while  feed  out  toward  Panamint 
and  Coso,  where  once  in  seven  years  there  is  a 
chance  of  abundant  grazing;  but  about  Owen's 
Lake  they  are  drawn  together  by  the  narrowing 
of  the  trail  and  the  tax  collector.  If  ever  you 
come  along  the  south  shore  of  that  dwindling, 
tideless  water  about  the  place  where  Manuel 


8o  THE    FLOCK 

de  Borba  killed  Mariana,  his  master,  and  sold 
the  flock  to  his  own  profit,  look  across  it  to  the 
wall-sided  hulks  of  the  Sierras  ;  best  if  you  can 
see  them  in  the  pure,  shadowless  light  of  early 
evening  when  the  lake  shines  in  the  wet  grey 
color  of  Irish  eyes.  For  then  and  from  this 
point  it  seems  the  Indians  named  them  "  Too- 
rape','  the  Ball  Players.  They  line  up  as  braves 
for  the  ancient  play,  immortally  young,  shining 
nakedly  above,  girt  with  pines,  their  strong 
cliffs  leaning  to  the  noble  poises  of  the  game. 

"  It  is  evident,"  Narcisse  Duplin  used  to  say 
when  he  came  to  this  point,  "  that  God  and  a 
poor  shepherd  may  admire  the  same  things." 

Always  in  October  or  April  one  sees  about 
the  little  towns  of  Inyo,  in  some  corner  of  the 
fields,  two  to  six  heavy  wagons  of  the  head  shep- 
herds, with  the  season's  outfit  stowed  under 
canvas ;  and  at  Eibeshutz's  or  Meysan's  hap- 
pen upon  nearly  unintelligible  herders  buying 
the  best  imported  olive  oil  and  the  heaviest 
American  cowhide  boots.  Hereabouts  they 
refresh  the  trail-weary  flocks  in  the  hired  pas- 
tures and  outfit  them  for  the  Sierra  meadows. 
Here  also  they  pay  the  license  for  the   open 


THE    LONG    TRAIL  8i 

range,  two  to  five  cents  a  head,  payable  by 
actual  count  in  every  county  going  or  return- 
ing. As  the  annual  passage  is  often  twice 
across  three  or  four  counties,  the  license  be- 
comes, in  the  minds  of  some  herders,  a  thing 
worth  avoiding.  Narcisse  Duplin,  red  Narcisse, 
who  went  over  this  trail  once  too  often,  told 
me  how,  in  a  certain  county  where  the  land 
permitted  it,  he  would  hide  away  the  half  of 
his  flock  in  the  hills,  then  go  boldly  with  the 
remnant  to  pay  his  assessment,  smuggling  forth 
the  others  at  night  out  of  the  collector's  range. 
But  here  where  the  trail  spindles  out  past 
Kearsarge  there  is  no  convenience  and,  I  may 
add,  hardly  any  intention  of  avoiding  it. 

A  flock  on  the  trail  moves  out  by  earliest 
light  to  feed.  For  an  hour  it  may  be  safely 
left  to  the  dogs  while  the  herder  starts  the  fire 
under  his  coffee  pot  and  prepares  his  bowl  of 
goat's  milk  and  large  lumps  of  bread.  The 
flock  spreads  fanwise,  feeding  from  the  sun. 
Good  herding  must  not  be  close ;  where  the 
sheep  are  held  in  too  narrow  a  compass  the 
middlers    and    tailers    crop  only  stubble,  and 


82  THE    FLOCK 

coming  empty  to  the  bedding  ground,  break 
in  the  night  and  stray  in  search  of  pasture. 
An  anxious  herder  makes  a  lean  flock.  Prop- 
erly the  band  comes  to  rest  about  mid-morning, 
drinking  when  there  is  water  to  be  had,  but  if 
no  water,  ruminating  contentedly  on  the  open 
fronts  of  hills  while  the  herder  cooks  a  meal. 

Myself,  I  like  the  dinner  that  comes  out  of 
the  herder's  black  pot,  mixing  its  savory  smells 
with  the  acrid  smoke  of  burning  sage.  You 
sit  on  the  ground  under  a  little  pent  of  brush 
and  are  served  in  a  tin  basin  with  mutton,  len- 
tils, and  garlic  cooked  together  wuth  potatoes 
and  peppers  ("  red  pottage  of  lentils "),  with 
thick  wedges  of  sour-dough  bread  to  sop  up 
the  gravy,  good  coffee  in  a  tin  cup  ;  and  after 
the  plate  is  cleared,  a  helping  of  wild  honey 
or  tinned  sweet  stuff.  Occasionally  there  will 
be  wild  salad,  miner's  lettuce,  pepper  grass  or 
cress  from  springy  meadows.  If  the  herder  has 
been  much  about  Indians,  you  may  have  little 
green  pods  of  milkweed  cooked  like  string 
beans,  summers  in  westward-fronting  caiions, 
thimbleberries  which  the  herder  gathers  in  his 
hat.    Trout  there  are  in  a  trout  country,  but 


THE    LONG   TRAIL  83 

seldom  game,  for  a  gun  does  not  go  easily  in  a 
cayaca. 

When  in  the  fall  the  Basques  forgather  at 
a  place  on  Oak  Creek  called  by  the  Indians 
"  Sagahaj'awife,  Place  -  of-the  -  Mush  -  that  -  was  - 
Afraid,"  you  get  the  greatest  delicacy  of  a 
sheep  camp,  a  haunch  of  mutton  stuck  full  of 
garlic  corns  and  roasted  in  a  Dutch  oven  under 
ground.  Even  buried  a  foot  in  red-hot  coals 
the  smell  of  this  delectation  is  so  persuasive 
that  Julien  told  me  once  on  Kern  River,  when 
he  had  left  his  mutton  a  moment  to  look  after 
the  sheep,  a  bear  came  out  of  the  hills  and  car- 
ried off  the  roast  in  the  pot.  There  is  no  doubt 
whatever  of  the  truth  of  this  incident. 

Bxead  for  the  camp  is  baked  by  the  head 
shepherd,  and  when  it  is  ready  for  the  pans  he 


-'''^#.v£^_^^3^.^' 

c'    ■ 

.-^-4&Mi 

,- 

^     / 

84  THE    FLOCK 

pulls  off  a  lump  and  drops  it  back  in  the  flour 
sack.  There  it  ferments  until  it  is  used  to  start 
the  next  baking, 

"  How  long,"  said  I  to  the  herder  from  whom 
I  first  learned  the  management  of  the  loaves, 
"how  long  might  you  go  on  raising  bread  from 
one  '  starter '  ?  " 

He  considered  as  he  rubbed  the  dough  from 
his  hands. 

"  When  first  I  come  to  this  country  in  '96  I 
have  a  fresh  piece,  from  the  head  shepherd 
of  Louis  Olcese.  Yes,  when  I  am  come  from 
France.  Madame-who-writes-the-book  could 
not  have  supposed  that  I  brought  it  with  me. 
Ah,  uon  !  " 

A  sack  of  flour  goes  to  six  of  the  round, 
brown  loaves,  and  one  is  a  four  days'  ration, 
excellent  enough  when  it  comes  up  out  of  the 
baking  trench,  rather  falling  off  after  three 
days  in  the  pack  with  garlic  and  burro  sweat, 
and  old  cheese.  The  acceptable  vegetables  are 
lentils  and  onions,  and  the  test  of  a  good  em- 
ployer is  the  quantity  of  onions  that  can  be 
gotten  out  of  him  after  the  price  goes  higher 
than  a  dollar  and  a  quarter  a  sack. 


THE    LONG    TRAIL  85 

The  mess  which  the  herder  puts  over  the 
fire  every  day  at  mid-morning  is  packed  in  the 
pot  in  the  cayaca  when  the  flock  moves  out  in 
the  afternoon,  and  warmed  at  his  twihght-cheer- 
ing  fire,  serves  as  supper  for  liimself  and  the 
dogs  ahke,  and  not  infrequently  in  the  same 
dish. 

I  have  said  you  should  hear  what  the  tariff 
revision  accomplished  for  the  sheep.  Just  this : 
before  that,  men  raised  sheep  for  wool  or  mut- 
ton expressly,  but  chiefly  for  wool.  Then  as 
the  scale  of  prices  hung  wavering,  doubtful  if 
wool  or  mutton  was  to  run  highest,  they  began 
to  cross  the  wool  and  mutton  breeds  to  produce 
a  sheep  that  matures  rapidly  and  shears  nine  or 
ten  pounds  of  wool,  directing  the  management 
of  the  flock  always  towards  the  turn  of  the 
highest  prices.  Every  sheepman  will  have  his 
preferences  among  Merinos,  Shropshires,  and 
Cotswolds;  but  in  general  the  Merinos  are  most 
tractable,  and  blackfaces  the  best  for  fenced 
pastures,  for  though  they  are  marketable  early 
they  scatter  too  much,  not  liking  to  feed  in  the 
middle  of  the  band,  grow  footsore  too  easily. 


86  THE    FLOCK 

and  despise  the  herder.  It  is  the  ultimate  dis- 
position of  the  flocks,  whether  for  mutton  or 
wool,  that  determines  the  distribution  of  them 
along  the  upper  countr}-  contiguous  to  the 
trail,  as  the  various  sorts  of  forage,  in  the  es- 
timation of  the  shepherd,  favor  one  or  another 
end.  He  is  a  poor  shepherd  whose  mind  can- 
not outrun  the  flock  by  a  season's  length  when 
by  eight  and  nine  mile  journeyings  they  pass 
northward  in  the  spring.  Little  Pete  drops 
out  at  Coyote  Valley  where  by  owning  the  best 
meadow  he  controls  the  neighboring  feed.  Joe 
Eyraud,  White  Mountain  Joe,  turns  off  toward 
the  upswelling  of  his  name  peak  to  the  peren- 
nial pastures  of  its  snows.  One  goes  by  Deep 
Springs  and  Lida  to  the  far-between  grazing- 
grounds  of  Nevada,  another  to  the  burnt  desert 
of  Mono.  Time  was  before  the  Forest  Reserve 
cut  them  off  from  the  high  Sierras,  the  shep- 
herds worked  clean  through  them,  returning  to 
the  lambing  stations  by  way  of  North  Fork, 
Kaweah,  and  the  Four  Creek  country,  and  such 
as  came  up  the  west  slope  went  back  through 
Mono  and  Inyo.  But  now  they  return  as  they 
went,  complaining  greatly  of  depleted  pastures. 


THE    LONC;    TRAIL  87 

The  flocks,  I  say,  drift  northward  where  the 
turgid  creeks  discharge  on  the  long  mesas. 
Passage  toward  tlie  high  valleys  is  deterred  by 
late  meltino^of  the  snows  and  urs^ed  forward  bv 
the  consideration  that  along  the  most  traveled 
stages  of  the  way  there  will  be  no  new  feed 
between  the  flowering  of  wild  almonds  and  the 
time  of  Bigelovia  bloom.  Close  spring  feeding 
makes  a  bitter  passage  of  the  fall  returning.  In 
bad  years  the  flocks  turn  in  to  the  barley  stub- 
ble, they  take  the  last  crop  of  alfalfa  standing ; 
in  a  vineyard  country  they  are  put  to  stripping 
the  leaves  from  the  vines. 

What  the  shepherd  prays  for  when  in  the 
fall  the  tall  dust  columns  begin  to  rise  from  the 
Black  Rock  is  a  promise  of  rain  in  the  dun 
clouds  stretched  across  the  valley,  low  and 
fleecy  soft,  touching  the  mountains  on  either 
side ;  grey  air  moving  on  the  dusky  mesas, 
wide  fans  of  light  cutting  through  the  canons 
to  illume  the  clear  blue  above  the  Passes ; 
soft  thunder  treading  tiptoe  above  the  floor  of 
cloud,  movino-  about  this  business  of  the  rain. 


VI 


THE  OPEN   RANGE  — THE 

COUNTRY  WHERE  THERE  IS 
NO  WEATHER,  AND  THE 
SIERRA    MEADOWS 


CHAPTER   VI 


THE    OPEN    RANGE 


Beyond  that  portion  of  the  great  California 
sheepwalk  which  is  every  man's,  the  desert- 
fenced  portion  between  Mojave  and  Sherwin 
Hill,  lies  a  big,  wild  country  full  of  laughing 
waters,  with  pines  marching  up  alongside  them 
circling  the  glassy  colored  lakes,  full  of  noble 
windy  slopes  and  high  grassy  valleys  barred  by 
the  sharp,  straight  shadows  of  new  mountains. 
All  the  cliffs  of  that  country  have  fresh  edges, 
and  the  lioht  that  cuts  between  them  from  the 


92  THE   FLOCK 

westering  sun  lies  yellowly  along  the  sod.  All 
the  winds  of  its  open  places  smell  of  sage, 
and  all  its  young  rivers  are  swift.  They  begin 
thin  and  crystalline  from  under  the  forty-foot 
drifts,  grow  thick  and  brown  in  the  hot  leaps 
of  early  summer,  run  clear  with  full  throaty 
laughter  in  midseason, froth  and  cloud  to  quick, 
far-off  rains,  fall  off  to  low  and  golden-mottled 
rills  before  the  first  of  the  snows.  By  their 
changes  the  herder  camped  a  hundred  miles 
from  his  summer  pastures  knows  what  goes 
forward  in  them. 

Let  me  tell  you  this,  —  every  sort  of  life  has 
its  own  zest  for  those  who  are  bred  to  it.  No 
more  delighted  sense  of  competency  and  power 
goes  to  the  man  who  from  his  wire  web  con- 
trols the  movement  of  money  and  wheat,  than  to 
the  shepherd  who  by  the  passage  of  birds,  by  the 
stream  tones,  by  the  drift  of  pine  pollen  on  the 
eddies  of  slack  water,  keeps  tally  of  the  pas- 
tures. Do  you  read  the  notes  of  mountain  color 
as  they  draw  into  dusk.f^  There  is  a  color  of 
blue,  deeply  pure  as  a  trumpet  tone  low  in  the 
scale,  that  announces  rain  ;  there  is  a  hot  blue 
mist  suffusing  into  gold  as  it  climbs  against  the 


THE    OPEN    RANGE  93 

horizon,  that  promises  wind.  There  is  a  sense 
that  wakes  in  the  night  with  a  warning  to  keej) 
the  flock  close,  and  another  sense  of  the  short- 
est direction.  The  smell  of  the  sheep  is  to  the 
herder  as  the  smack  and  savor  of  any  man's 
work.  Also  it  is  possible  to  felicitate  one's  self 
on  roundino-  a  feedino-  flock  and  brin2:ino^  it  to 
a  standstill  within  a  flock-lenq;th. 

The  whole  of  that  great  country  northward 
is  so  open  and  well-ordered  that  it  affords  the 
freest  exercise  of  shepherd  craft,  every  man 
going  about  to  seek  the  preferred  pastures  for 
which  use  has  bred  a  liking.  Miles  and  miles 
of  that  district  are  dusky  white  w'ith  sage,  fall- 
ing off  to  cienagas,  — grassy  hollows  of  seeping 
springs,  —  cooled  by  the  windy  flood  that  sets 
from  the  mountain  about  an  hour  before  noon. 
The  voice  of  that  country  is  an  open  whisper, 
pointed  at  intervals  by  the  deep  whir-r-r-r  of 
the  sage  hens  rising  from  some  place  of  hidden 
waters.  Times  when  there  is  moonlight,  watery 
and  cold,  a  long  thin  howl  detaches  itself  from 
any  throat  and  welters  on  the  wind.  Here  the 
lift  of  the  sky  through  the  palpitant,  pale  noons 
exalts   the   sense,  and   the   rui^e    of    the  sage 


94  THE    FLOCK 

under  it  turning  silverly  to  the  wind  stirs  at 
the  heart  as  the  slow  smile  of  one  well -loved 
of  whom  you  are  yet  a  little  afraid.  Such 
hours,  merely  at  finding  in  the  bent  tops  of 
the  brush  the  wattling  by  which  the  herder 
keeps  his  head  from  the  sun,  passes  the  fiash 
and  color  of  the  time  when  the  man-seed  was 
young  and  the  Power  moved  toward  the  Par- 
thenon from  a  plat  of  interlacing  twigs. 

The  sagebrush  grows  up  to  an  elevation  of 
eight  or  nine  thousand  feet  and  the  wind  has 
not  quite  lapped  up  the  long-backed  drifts  from 
its  hollows  when  the  sheep  come  in.  A  month 
later  there  will  begin  to  be  excellent  browse 
along  the  lower  pine  borders,  meadow  sweet, 
buckthorns,  and  sulphur  flower.  The  yellow 
pines,  beaten  by  the  wind,  or  at  the  mere  stir  of 
pine  warblers  and  grosbeaks  in  their  branches, 
give  out  clouds  of  pollen  dust. 

The  suffusion  of  light  over  the  Sierra  high- 
lands is  singular.  Broad  bands  of  atmosphere 
infiltrating  the  minareted  crests  seem  not  to 
be  penetrated  by  it,  but  the  sage,  the  rounded 
backs  of  the  sheep,  the  clicking  needles  of  the 
pines  give   it   back   in   luminous  particles  in- 


THi:    OPEN    RANGE  95 

finitely  divided.  Airy  floods  of  it  pour  about 
the  plats  of  white  and  purple  heather  and 
deepen  vaporously  blue  at  the  bases  of  the 
headlands.  Long  shafts  of  it  at  evening  fall 
so  obliquely  as  to  strike  far  under  the  ragged 
bellies  of  the  sheep.  Wind  approaches  from 
the  high  places;  even  at  the  highest  it  drops 
down  from  unimagined  steeps  of  air.  Wlien  it 
moves  in  a  caiion,  before  ever  the  near  torches 
of  the  castilleia  are  stirred  by  it,  far  up  you  hear 
the  crescendo  tone  of  the  fretted  waters,  first 
as  it  were  the  foam  of  sound  blown  toward  you, 
and  under  it  the  pounding  of  the  falls.  Then 
it  runs  with  a  patter  in  the  quaking  asp ;  now  it 
takes  a  fir  and  wrestles  with  it ;  it  wakes  the 
brushwood  with  a  whistle ;  in  the  soft  dark  of 
night  it  tugs  at  the  corners  of  the  bed. 

Weather  warnings  in  a  hill  country  are 
short  but  unmistakable;  it  is  not  well  any- 
where about  the  Sierras  to  leave  the  camp 
uncovered  if  one  must  move  out  of  reach  of  it. 
And  if  the  herder  tires  of  precautions  let  him 
go  eastward  of  the  granite  ranges  where  there 
is  no  weather.  Let  him  go  by  the  Hot  Creek 
country,  by  Dead  Man's  Gulch  and  the  Suck- 


96  THE    FXOCK 

ing  Sands,  by  the  lava  Flats  and  the  pink  and 
roan-colored  hills  where  the  lost  mines  are,  by 
the  black  hills  of  pellucid  glass  where  the  sage 
gives  place  to  the  bitter  brush,  the  wheno-iiabe, 
where  the  carrion  crows  catch  grasshoppers 
and  the  coyotes  eat  juniper  berries,  where, 
during  the  months  man  finds  it  possible  to 
stay  in  them,  there  is  no  weather.  Let  him 
go,  if  he  can  stand  it,  where  the  land  is  naked 
and  not  ashamed,  where  it  is  always  shut 
night  or  wide-open  day  with  no  interval  but 
the  pinkish  violet  hour  of  the  alpen  glow. 
There  is  forage  enough  in  good  years  and 
water  if  you  know  where  to  look  for  it.  Indians 
resorted  there  once  to  gather  winter  stores 
from  the  grey  nut-pines  that  head  out  roundly 
on  the  eight  thousand  foot  levels  each  in  its 
clear  wide  space.  The  sand  between  them  is 
strewn  evenly  with  charred  flakes  of  roasted 
cones  and  the  stone  circles  about  the  pits  are 
powdered  still  with  ashes,  for,  as  I  have  said, 
there  is  no  weather  there. 

There  are  some  pleasant  places  in  this 
district,  nice  and  trivial  as  the  childhood  re- 
miniscences of  senility,  but  the  great  laps  and 


I 


THE    OPEN    RANGE  97 

folds  of  the  canons  are  like  the  corrugations 
in  the  faces  of  the  indecently  aged.  There  is 
a  look  about  men  who  come  from  sojourning 
in  that  country  as  if  the  sheer  nakedness  of 
the  land  had  somehow  driven  the  soul  back 
on  its  elemental  impulses.  You  can  imagine 
that  one  type  of  man  exposed  to  it  would 
become  a  mystic  and  another  incredibly 
brutalized. 

The  devotion  of  the  herder  to  the  necessi- 
ties of  the  flock  is  become  a  proverb.  In  a 
matter  of  urgent  grazing  these  hairy  little  Bas- 
cos  would  feed  their  flocks  to  the  rim  of  the 
world  and  a  little  over  it,  but  I  think  thev  like 
best  to  stay  where  the  days  and  nights  are  not 
all  of  one  piece,  where  after  the  flare  of  the 
storm-trumpeting  sunsets,  they  can  snuggle 
to  the  blankets  and  hear  the  rain  begin  to 
drum  on  the  canvas  covers,  and  mornings  see 
the  shudder  of  the  flock  under  the  lift  of  the 
cloud-mist  like  the  yellowing  droves  of  breakers 
in  a  fog  backing  away  from  the  ferries  in  the 
bay.  Pleasant  it  is  also  in  the  high  valleys 
where  the  pines  begin,  to  happen  on  friendly 
camps  of   Indians  come  up  in  clans  and  fami- 


98  THE    FLOCK 

lies  to  gather  larva?  of  pine  borers,  cJiia, 
ground  cherries,  and  sunflower  seed.  One 
could  well  leave  the  flock  with  the  dogs  for 
an  hour  to  see  the  firelight  redden  on  care- 
free faces  and  hear  the  soft  laughter  of  the 
women,  bubbling  as  hidden  water  in  the  dark. 

It  was  not  until  most  of  the  things  I  have 
been  writing  to  you  about  had  happened ; 
after  Narcisse  Duplin  had  died  because  of 
Suzon  Moynier,  and  Suzon  had  died;  after 
the  two  Lausannes  had  found  each  other  and 
Finot  had  won  a  fortune  in  a  lottery  and  gone 
back  to  France  to  spend  it ;  but  not  long  after 
the  wavering  of  the  tariff  and  its  final  adjust- 
ment had  brought  the  sheep  business  to  its 
present  status,  that  the  flocks  began  to  be 
tabooed  of  the  natural  forest  lands. 

One  must  think  of  the  coniferous  belt  of  the 
Sierra  Nevadas  as  it  appears  from  the  top  of 
the  tremendous  uplift  about  the  head  of  Kern 
and  Kings  rivers,  as  a  dark  mantle  laid  over 
the  range,  rent  sharply  by  the  dove-grey  sierra, 
conforming  to  the  large  contours  of  the  moun- 
tains and  fraying  raggedly  along  the  caiions; 


THE    OPEN    RANGE  99 

a  sombre  cloak  to  the  mysteries  by  which  the 
drainage  of  this  watershed  is  made  into  Hve 
rivers. 

Above  the  pines  rears  a  choppy  and  disor- 
dered surf  of  stone,  lakes  in  its  hollows  of  the 
clear  jade  that  welters  below  the  shoreward 
lift  of  waves.  From  the  troughs  of  the  upfiung 
peaks  the  shining  drifts  sag  back.  By  the  time 
they  have  shortened  so  much  that  the  honey 
flutes  of  the  wild  columbine  call  the  bees  to  the 
upper  limit  of  trees,  the  flocks  have  melted  into 
the  wood.  They  feed  on  the  chaparral  up 
from  the  stream  borders  and  in  the  hanging 
meadows  that  are  freed  first  from  the  flood  of 
snow-water;  the  raking  hoofs  sink  deeply  in 
the  damp,  loosened  soil.  As  the  waste  of  the 
drifts  gathers  into  runnels  they  follow  it  into 
filled  lake  basins  and  cut  off  the  hope  of  a 
thousand  blossomy  things.  Then  they  begin  to 
seek  out  the  hidden  meadows,  deep  wells  of 
pleasantness  that  the  pines  avoid  because  of 
wetness,  soddy  and  good  and  laced  by  bright 
waters,  Manache  meadows  girdling  the  red  hills, 
Kearsarw   meadows   above   the    white-barked 

O 

pines.   Big    meadows    where    the    creek   goes 


lOO  THE    FLOCK 

smoothly  on  the  glacier  slips,  Short-Hair  mead- 
ows, Tehippeti  meadows  under  the  dome  where 
the  haunted  water  has  a  sound  of  bells,  mead- 
ows of  the  Twin  Lakes  and  Middle-Fork, 
meadows  of  Yosemite,  of  Stinking  Water,  and 
Angustora. 

Chains  of  meadows  there  are  that  lie  along 
creek  borders,  new  meadows  at  the  foot  of  steep 
snow-shedding  cliffs,  shut  pastures  fiock-jour- 
neys  apart,  where  no  streams  run  out  and  no 
trails  lead  in,  and  between  them  over  the  con- 
necting moraines,  over  the  dividing  knife-blade 
ridges,  go  the  pines  in  open  order  with  the 
young  hope  of  the  forest  coming  up  under 
them.  No  doubt  meadow  grasses,  all  plants 
that  renew  from  the  root,  were  meant  for  for- 
age, and  forgetting  at  them  wild  grazing  beasts 
were  made  fleet.  But  nothing  other  than  fear 
puts  speed  in  man-herded  flocks.  Seed-renew- 
ing plants  come  up  between  the  tree  boles, 
tufty  grass,  fireweed,  shinleaf,  and  pipsisiwa ; 
these  the  slow-moving  flocks  must  crop,  and 
unavoidably  along  with  them  the  seedling  pines; 
then  as  by  successive  croppings,  forest  floors  are 
cleared,  they  nip  the  tender  ends  of  young  sap- 


THE    OPEN    RANGE  loi 

lings,  for  the  business  of  the  flock  is  to  feed  and 
to  keep  on  feeding.  Where  the  forest  intervals 
afforded  no  more  grazing,  good  shepherds  set 
them  alight  and  looked  for  new  pastures  to 
spring  up  in  the  burned  districts.  Who  knew 
how  far  the  fire  crept  in  the  brown  litter  or 
heard  it  shrieking  as  it  ran  up  the  tall  masts  of 
pines,  or  saw  the  wild  supplications  of  its  pitchy 
smoke  ?  As  for  the  shepherd,  he  fed  forward 
with  the  flocks  over  the  shrubby  moraines. 
When  the  thick  chaparral  made  difficult  pass- 
age, when  it  tore  the  wool,  the  good  shepherd 
set  the  fire  to  rip  out  a  path,  and  the  next 
year  found  tender,  sappy  browze  springing 
from  the  undying  roots.  The  flock  came  to  the 
meadows ;  they  fed  close ;  then  the  foreplan- 
nino:  herder  turned  the  creek  from  its  course 
to  water  it  anew  and  the  rainbow  trout  died 
gasping  on  the  sod. 

I  say  the  good  shepherd — the  man  who 
makes  good  the  destiny  of  flocks  to  bear  wool 
and  produce  mutton.  For  what  else  fares  he 
forth  with  his  staff  and  his  dogs?  A  shepherd 
is  not  a  forester,  nor  is  he  the  only  sort  of  man 
ignorant  and  scornful  of  the  advantage  of  cov- 


I02  THE    FLOCK 

ered  watersheds.  When  he  first  vv-ent  about  the 
business  of  putting  the  mountain  to  account, 
the  orreatest  number  to  whom  water  for  irrisra- 
tion  is  the  greatest  good  had  not  arrived.  If 
in  the  seventies  and  eighties  here  and  there  a 
sheepman  had  arisen  to  declare  for  the  Forest 
Reserve,  who  of  the  Powers  would  have  heard 
him,  which  of  the  New  Englanders  who  are 
now  orange-growers  would  have  understood 
his  speech  ?  In  fact  many  did  so  deliver  them- 
selves. The  unrestricted  devotion  of  the  pine 
belt  to  the  sheep  has  done  us  damage;  but  let 
us  say  no  more  about  it  lest  we  be  made 
ashamed. 

The  meadow  pastures  make  long  camps  and 
light  labors.  The  sheep  feed  out  to  the  hill 
slopes  in  the  morning  and  return  to  the  stream- 
side  to  drink.  The  herder  lies  upon  the  grass, 
the  springy  grass  of  the  willow-skirted  mead- 
ows, by  the  white  violets  of  alpine  meadows 
where  the  racing  waters  are.  Then  he  begins 
to  be  busy  about  those  curious  handcrafts  as 
old  as  shepherding.  He  makes  chain  orna- 
ments of  horsehair,  black  and  white,  and  pipe 


THE   OPEN    RANGE 


103 


bowls  of  ruddy,  curled  roots  of  manzanita.  He 
sits  with  his  knife  and  his  staff  of  willow  and 
covers  it  with  interlacing  patterns  of  carved 
work.  There  was  a  herder  whose  round  was  by 
way  of  Antelope  Valley  and  Agua  Hedidndo 
who  had  carved  his  staff  from  the  bottom,  be- 
ginning with  scaly  fish-tailed  things  through  all 
the  beasts  that  are  and  some  that  are  not,  climb- 
ing up  to  man.  Vivian  who  keeps  the  wine- 
shop at  Kern,  Vivian  the  W^ood  Carver,  had  a 
chest  in  his  camp  with 
a  lock  of  several  com- 
binations, all  of  hard 
wood,  the  work  of  his 
knife.  But  chiefly  the 
French  herder  loves  to 
spend  himself  on  the 
curious  keys  of  horn 
that  stay  the  bell-leath- 
ers in  the  yoke,  for  to 
the  shepherd  born  there  is  no  more  tunable, 
sweet  sound  than  the  varied  peal  of  his  bells 
"each  under  each,"  as  the  flock  strays  in  the 
tall  chaparral.  Now  and  then  in  a  large  flock, 
for  distinctness,  clangs  the  flat-toned  American 


I04  THE    FLOCK 

bell,  but  the  best  come  from  Gap  in  the  Hau- 
tain  Alps,  and  come  steerage  in  the  herder's 
pack,  though  you  can  buy  the  voiceless  shell 
of  the  bell  from  Louis  Olcese  at  Kern.  The 
metal  is  thin  and  shines  like  the  gold  of  Ma- 
zourka,  and  though  it  is  dimmed  by  use  like 
old  bronze,  though  it  colors  in  time  as  the  skin 
of  Indians,  and  the  edge  of  it  wears  sharp  as 
a  knife-blade  where  it  rubs  along  the  sand,  the 
tone  of  it  is  deep  and  sweet.  The  clapper  of  a 
French  bell  is  a  hard  tip  of  ram's  horn,  or  the 
ankle  bone  of  a  burro,  hung  on  a  soft  buckskin 
thong,  a  fashion  old  as  Araby.  Shepherds  from 
the  Rhone  love  to  stay  the  bells  on  great  oak 
bows  as  broad  as  a  man's  hand,  flaring  at  the 
ends;  and  where  the  bell-leathers  pass  through 
they  are  held  by  curious  keys  of  horn.  Some 
I  have  from  Vivian  Wright  of  the  hard  tips  of 
bighorn,  softened  and  shaped  with  infinite  long 
care,  matched  perfectly  for  curve  and  color. 
There  is  a  sort  of  fascination  in  the  naive  and 
unrelated  whittlings  and  plaitings  that  proceed 
from  men  who  have  a  musing  way  of  life,  as  if 
when  the  mind  is  a  little  from  itself  some  fig- 
ment of  the  Original  Impulse  begins  to  fumble 


THE   OPEN    RANGE 


105 


through  the  teachable  strong  fingers  toward 
creation.  Such  hints  do  glimmer  on  the  sense 
when  with  his  knife  the  herder  beguiles  the 
still  noons  of  summer  meadows. 

It   was  there,  too,  I  first  heard  the  fiute  of 
the  Dauphinoisa. 

I  had  come  up  an  hour  of  stiff  climbing  on 
a  glacier  slip,  by  the  long  shin- 
ing granite  bosses,  treading 
the  narrow  footholds  of  the 
saxifrage,  by  the  great  plats  of 
winy,  red  penstemon,  odorous 
and  hot,  hugging  perilously 
around  grey,  sloping,  stony 
fronts,  scarred  purple  by  the 
shallow-creviced  epilobium ;  by 
white-belled  beds  of  cassiope, 
where  a  spring  issued  whisper- 
ingly  on  the  stones;  by  glassy 
hollows  of  snow-water,  with  cool  vagrant  airs 
blowing  blithely  on  the  heather;  then  warm, 
weathered  surfaces  of  stone  with  flocks  of  white 
columbine  adrift  about  their  cleavages  ;  and 
above  all  the  springy,  prostrate  trunks  of  the 
white-barked  pine,  depressed  on  the  polished 


io6  THE   FLOCK 

frontage  of  the  hill.  Here  I  heard  at  intervals 
the  flute,  sweet  single  notes  as  if  the  lucid  air 
had  dripped  in  sound.  Awhile  I  heard  it,  and 
between,  the  slumberous  roll  of  bells  and  the 
whistling  whisper  of  the  pines,  the  long  note 
of  the  pines  like  falling  water  and  water  falling 
like  the  windy  tones  of  pines;  then  the  warble 
of  the  flute  out  of  the  flock-murmur  as  I  came 
over  the  back  of  the  slip  where  it  hollowed  to 
let  in  a  little  meadow  fresh  and  flowered. 

The  herder  sat  with  his  back  to  a  boulder 
and  gave  forth  with  his  breath  small  notes  of 
sweet  completeness,  threading  the  shape  of  a 
tune  as  the  drip  of  snow-water  threads  among 
the  stones,  and  the  tune  an  old  one  such  as 
suits  very  well  with  a  comfortable  mind  and  a 
rosy  meadow.  The  flute  was  a  reed,  a  common 
reed  out  of  Inyo,  from  the  muddy  water  where 
it  sprawls  between  the  marshes,  and  the  herder 
had  shaped  it  with  his  knife ;  but  it  could  say 
as  well  as  another  that  though  grieving  was  no 
doubt  wholesome  when  grief  was  seasonable, 
since  the  hour  was  set  for  gladness  it  was  well 
to  be  glad  most  completely. 


VII 


m^:.^ 


THE   FLOCK. 


CHAPTER    VII 


THE     FLOCK 


The  earliest  important  achievement  of  ovine 
intelligence  is  to  know  whether  its  own  notion 
or  another's  is  most  worth  while,  and  if  the 
other's,  which  one.  Individual  sheep  have  cer- 
tain qualities,  instincts,  competencies,  but  in 
the  man-herded  flocks  these  are  superseded 
by  something  which  I  shall  call  the  l^ock-mind, 
though  I  cannot  say  very  well  what  it  is,  ex- 
cept that  it  is  less  than  the  sum  of  all  their  in- 
telligences.   This  is  why  there  have  never  been 


no  THE    FLOCK 

any  notable  changes  in  the  management  of 
flocks  since  the  first  herder  girt  himself  with 
a  wallet  of  sheepskin  and  went  out  of  his  cave 
dwelling  to  the  pastures. 

Understand  that  a  flock  is  not  the  same 
thing  as  a  number  of  sheep.  On  the  stark 
wild  headlands  of  the  White  Mountains,  as 
many  as  thirty  Bighorn  are  known  to  run  in 
loose,  fluctuating  hordes  ;  in  fenced  pastures, 
two  to  three  hundred;  close -herded  on  the 
range,  two  to  three  thousand ;  but  however 
artificially  augmented,  the  flock  is  always  a 
conscious  adjustment.  As  it  is  made  up  in  the 
beginning  of  the  season,  the  band  is  chiefly  of 
one  sort,  wethers  or  ewes  or  weanling  lambs 
(for  the  rams  do  not  run  with  the  flock  except 
for  a  brief  season  in  August) ;  with  a  few  flock- 
wise  ones,  trained  goats,  the  cabestres  of  the 
Mexican  herders,  trusted  bell-wethers  or  ex- 
perienced old  ewes  mixed  and  intermeddled  by 
the  herder  and  the  dogs,  becoming  invariably 
and  finally  coordinate.  There  are  always 
Leaders,  Middlers,  and  Tailers,  each  insisting  on 
its  own  place  in  the  order  of  going.  Should  the 
flock  be  rounded  up  suddenly  in  alarm  it  mills 


THE    FLOCK  in 

within  itself  until  these  have  come  to  their 
own  places. 

If  you  would  know  something  of  the  temper 
and  politics  of  the  shepherd  you  meet,  inquire 
of  him  for  the  names  of  his  leaders.  They 
should  be  named  for  his  sweethearts,  for  the 
little  towns  of  France,  for  the  generals  of  the 
great  Napoleon,  for  the  presidents  of  Repub- 
lics,—  though  for  that  matter  they  are  all  ar- 
dent republicans,  —  for  the  popular  heroes  of 
the  hour.  Good  shepherds  take  the  greatest 
pains  with  their  leaders,  not  passing  them  with 
the  first  flock  to  slaughter,  but  saving  them  to 
make  wise  the  next. 

There  is  much  debate  between  herders  as  to 
the  advantage  of  goats  over  sheep  as  leaders. 
In  any  case  there  are  always  a  few  goats  in  a 
flock,  and  most  American  owners  prefer  them  ; 
but  the  Frenchmen  choose  bell-wethers.  Goats 
lead  naturally  by  reason  of  a  quicker  instinct, 
forage  more  freely,  and  can  find  water  on  their 
own  account.  But  wethers,  if  trained  with  care, 
learn  what  goats  abhor,  to  take  broken  ground 
sedately,  to  walk  through  the  water  rather  than 
set  the  whole  flock  leaping  and  scrambling ; 


112  THE    FLOCK 

but  never  to  give  voice  to  alarm  as  goats  will, 
and  call  the  herder.  Wethers  are  more  bidable 
once  they  are  broken  to  it,  but  a  goat  is  the 
better  for  a  good  beating.  Echenique  has  told 
me  that  the  more  a  goat  complains  under  his 
cudgelings  the  surer  he  is  of  the  brute's  need  of 
discipline.  Goats  afford  another  service  in  fur- 
nishing milk  for  the  shepherd,  and,  their  udders 
being  most  public,  will  suckle  a  sick  lamb,  a 
pup,  or  a  young  burro  at  need. 

It  appears  that  leaders  understand  their 
office,  and  goats  particularly  exhibit  a  jealousy 
of  their  rights  to  be  first  over  the  stepping- 
stones  or  to  walk  the  teetering  log-bridges  at 
the  roaring  creeks.  By  this  facile  reference  of 
the  initiative  to  the  wisest  one,  the  shepherd 
is  served  most.  The  dogs  learn  to  which  of  the 
flock  to  communicate  orders,  at  which  heels  a 
bark  or  a  bite  soonest  sets  the  flock  in  motion. 
But  the  flock-mind  obsesses  equally  the  best 
trained,  flashes  as  instantly  from  the  Meanest 
of  the  Flock. 

Suppose  the  sheep  to  scatter  widely  on  a 
heather-planted  headland,  the  leader  feeding- 
far  to  windward.    Comes  a  cougar  sneaking  up 


THE    FLOCK  113 

the  trail  between  the  rooted  boulders  toward 
the  Meanest  of  the  Flock.  The  smell  of  him, 
the  play  of  light  on  his  sleek  flanks  startles  the 
unslumbering  fear  in  the  Meanest;  it  runs 
widening  in  the  liock-mind,  exploding  instantly 
in  the  impulse  of  flight. 

Danger  !  flashes  the  flock-mind,  and  in  dan- 
ger the  indispensable  thing  is  to  run,  not  to 
wait  until  the  leader  sniffs  the  tainted  wind 
and  signals  it ;  not  for  each  and  singly  to  put 
the  occasion  to  the  proof ;  but  to  run  —  of  this 
the  flock-mind  apprises  —  and  to  keep  on  run- 
ning until  the  impulse  dies  faintly  as  water- 
rings  on  the  surface  of  a  mantling  pond.  In 
the  wild  pastures  flight  is  the  only  succor, 
and  since  to  cry  out  is  to  interfere  with  that 
business  and  draw  on  the  calamity,  a  flock  in 
extremity  never  cries  out. 

Consider,  then,  the  inadequacy  of  the  flock- 
mind.  A  hand-fed  leader  may  learn  to  call  the 
herder  vociferously,  a  cosset  lamb  in  trouble 
come  blatting  to  his  heels,  but -the  flock  has 
no  voice  other  than  the  deep-mouthed  peal- 
ino-s  hungr  about  the  leader's  neck.  In  all  that 
darkling  lapse  of  time  since  herders  began  to 


114  THE    FLOCK 

sleep  by  the  sheep  with  their  weapons,  afford- 
ing a  protection  that  the  flock-mind  never 
learns  to  invite,  they  have  found  no  better 
trick  than  to  be  still  and  run  foolishly.  For 
the  flock-mind  moves  only  in  the  direction 
of  the  Original  Intention.  When  at  shearings 
or  markings  they  run  the  yearlings  through  a 
gate  for  counting,  the  rate  of  going  accelerates 
until  the  sheep  pass  too  rapidly  for  number- 
ing. Then  the  shepherd  thrusts  his  staff  across 
the  opening,  forcing  the  next  sheep  to  jump, 
and  the  next,  and  the  next,  until.  Jump !  says 
the  flock-mind.  Then  he  withdraws  the  staff, 
and  the  sheep  go  on  jumping  until  the  impulse 
dies  as  the  dying  peal  of  the  bells. 

By  very  little  the  herder  may  turn  the  flock- 
mind  to  his  advantage,  but  chiefly  it  works 
against  him.  Suppose  on  the  open  range  the 
impulse  to  forward  movement  overtakes  them, 
set  in  motion  by  some  eager  leaders  that  re- 
member enough  of  what  lies  ahead  to  make 
them  oblivious  to  what  they  pass.  They  press 
ahead.  The  flock  draws  on.  The  momentum 
of  travel  grows.  The  bells  clang  soft  and  hur- 
riedly ;  the  sheep  forget  to  feed  ;  they  neglect 


THE    FLOCK  115 

the  tender  pastures  ;  they  will  not  stay  to  drink. 
Under  an  unwise  or  indolent  herder  the  sheep 
soins:  on  an  accustomed  trail  will  over-travel 
and  under-feed,  until  in  the  midst  of  good  pas- 
ture they  starve  upon  their  feet.  So  it  is  on  the 
Long  Trail  you  so  often  see  the  herder  walking 
with  his  dogs  ahead  of  his  sheep  to  hold  them 
back  to  feed.  But  if  it  should  be  new  ground 
he  must  go  after  and  press  them  skillfully,  for 
the  flock-mind  balks  chiefly  at  the  unknown. 

If  a  Hock  could  be  stopped  as  suddenly  as 
it  is  set  in  motion,  Sanger  would  never  have 
lost  to  a  single  bear  the  five  hundred  sheep  he 
told  me  of.  They  were  bedded  on  a  mesa 
breaking  off  in  a  precipice  two  hundred  feet 
above  the  valley,  and  the  bear  came  up  behind 
them  in  the  moonless  watch  of  night.  A\"ith 
no  sound  but  the  scurry  of  feet  and  the  star- 
tled clamor  of  the  bells,  the  flock  broke  straight 
ahead.  The  brute  instinct  had  warned  ihem 
asleep  but  it  could  not  save  them  awake.  All 
that  the  flock-mind  could  do  was  to  stir  them 
instantly  to  running,  and  they  fled  straight  away 
over  the  headland,  piling  up,  five  hundred  of 
them,  in  the  gulch  below. 


ii6  THE    FLOCK 

In  sudden  attacks  from  several  quarters,  or 
inexplicable  man-thwarting  of  their  instincts, 
the  flock-mind  teaches  them  to  turn  a  solid 
front,  revolving  about  in  the  smallest  compass 
with  the  lambs  in  the  midst,  narrowing  and  in- 
drawing  until  they  perish  by  suffocation.  So 
they  did  in  the  intricate  defiles  of  Red  Rock, 
where  Carrier  lost  two  hundred  and  fifty  in 
'74,  and  at  Poison  Springs,  as  Narcisse  Duplin 
told  me,  where  he  had  to  choose  between  leav- 
ing them  to  the  deadly  waters,  or,  prevented 
from  the  spring,  made  witless  by  thirst,  to  mill 
about  until  they  piled  up  and  killed  threescore 
in  their  midst.  By  no  urgency  of  the  dogs 
could  they  be  moved  forward  or  scattered  until 
night  fell  with  coolness  and  returning  sanity. 
Nor  does  the  imperfect  gregariousness  of  man 
always  save  us  from  ill-considered  rushes  or 
strano^ulous  in-turninQ[s  of  the  social  mass. 
Notwithstanding  there  are  those  who  would 
have  us  to  be  flock-minded. 

It  is  probable  that  the  obsession  of  this 
over-sense  originates  in  the  extraordinary 
quickness  with  which  the  sheep  makes  the 
superior    intelligence   of  the   leader  serve   his 


THE    FLOCK  ii7 

own  end.  A  very  little  running  in  the  open 
range  proves  that  one  in  e\ery  group  of  sheep 
has  sharper  vision,  quicker  hearing,  keener 
scent;  henceforth  it  is  the  business  of  the  dull 
sheep  to  watch  that  favored  one.  No  slightest 
sniff  or  stamp  escapes  him  ;  the  order  for  flight 
finds  him  with  muscles  tense  for  runninor. 

The  worth  of  a  leader  in  close-herded  fiocks 
is  his  ability  to  catch  readily  the  will  of  the 
herder.  Times  I  have  seen  the  sheep  feeding 
far  from  the  man,  not  knowing  their  appointed 
bedding-place.  The  dogs  lag  at  the  herder's 
heels.  Now  as  the  sun  is  going  down  the  man 
thrusts  out  his  arm  with  a  gesture  that  conveys 
to  the  dogs  his  wish  that  they  turn  the  flock 
toward  a  certain  open  scarp.  The  dogs  trot 
out  leisurely,  circling  widely  to  bring  up  the 
farthest  stragglers,  but  before  they  round  upon 
it  the  flock  turns.  It  moves  toward  the  ap- 
pointed quarter  and  pours  smoothl}^  up  the  hill. 
It  is  possible  that  the  leaders  may  have  learned 
the  language  of  that  right  arm,  and  in  times 
of  quietude  obey  it  without  intervention  of  the 
doo^s.  It  is  also  conceivable  that  in  the  clear 
silences  of  the  untroubled  wild  the  flock-mind 


ii8  THE    FLOCK 

takes  its  impulse  directly  from  the  will  of  the 
herder. 

-  Almost  the  only  sense  left  untouched  by 
man-herding  is  the  weather  sense.  Scenting  a 
change,  the  sheep  exhibit  a  tendency  to  move  to 
higher  ground  ;  no  herder  succeeds  in  making 
his  flock  feed  in  the  eye  of  the  sun.  While  rain 
falls  they  will  not  feed  nor  travel  except  in 
extreme  desperation,  but  if  after  long  falling  it 
leaves  off  suddenly,  night  or  day,  the  flock 
begins  to  crop.  Then  if  the  herder  hears  not 
the  bells  nor  wakes  himself  by  that  subtle  sense 
which  in  the  outdoor  life  has  time  to  grow,  he 
has  his  day's  work  cut  out  for  him  in  the  round- 
ing-up.  A  season  of  long  rains  makes  short 
fleeces. 

Summers  in  the  mountains,  sheep  love  to 
lie  on  the  cooling  banks  and  lick  the  snow,  pre- 
ferring it  to  any  drink  ;  but  if  falling  snow  over- 
takes them  they  are  bewildered  by  it,  find  no 
food  for  themselves,  and  refuse  to  travel  while 
it  lies  on  the  ground.  This  is  the  more  singu- 
lar, for  the  American  wild  sheep,  the  Bighorn, 
makes  nothing  of  a  twenty  foot  fall ;  in   the 


I 


THE    FLOCK  119 

blinding  swirl  of  flakes  shifts  only  to  let  the 
drifts  pile  under  him;  ruminates  most  content- 
edly when  the  world  is  full  of  a  roaring-  white 
wind.  Most  beasts  in  bad  weather  drift  before 
a  storm.  The  faster  it  moves  the  farther  go 
the  sheep ;  so  if  there  arises  one  of  those  blowy 
days  that  announce  the  turn  of  the  two  seasons, 
blinding  thick  with  small  dust,  at  the  end  of  a 
few  hours  of  it  the  shepherd  sees  the  tails  of 
his  sheep  disappearing  down  the  wind.  The 
tendency  of  sheep  is  to  seek  lower  ground  when 
disturbed  by  beasts,  and  under  weather  stress 
to  work  up.  When  any  of  his  flock  are  strayed 
or  stampeded,  the  herder  knows  by  the  occa- 
sion whether  to  seek  them  up  hill  or  down. 
Seek  them  he  must  if  he  would  have  them 
again,  for  estrays  have  no  faculty  by  sense  or 
scent  to  work  their  way  back  to  the  herd.  Let 
them  be  separated  from  it  but  by  the  roll  of  the 
land,  and  by  accident  headed  in  another  direc- 
tion, it  is  for  them  as  if  the  ilock  had  never 
been.  It  is  to  provide  against  this  incompe- 
tency that  the  shepherd  makes  himself  markers, 
a  black  sheep,  or  one  with  a  crumpled  horn  or 
an  unshorn  patch  on  the  rump,  easily  notice- 


I20  THE    FLOCK 

able  in  the  shuffle  of  dust-colored  backs.  It 
is  the  custom  to  have  one  marker  to  one  hun- 
dred sheep,  each  known  by  his  chosen  place 
in  the  flock  which  he  insists  upon,  so  that  if 
as  many  as  half  a  dozen  stray  out  of  the  band 
the  relative  position  of  the  markers  is  changed  ; 
or  if  one  of  these  conspicuous  ones  be  missing 
it  will  not  be  singly,  because  of  the  tendency 
of  large  flocks  to  form  smaller  groups  about 
the  best  worth  following. 

I  do  not  know  very  well  what  to  make  of 
that  trait  of  lost  sheep  to  seek  rock  shelter  at 
the  base  of  cliffs,  for  it  suits  with  no  character- 
istic of  his  wild  brethren.  But  if  an  estray  in  his 
persistent  journey  up  toward  the  high  places 
arrives  at  the  foot  of  a  tall  precipice,  there  he 
stays,  seeking  not  to  go  around  it,  feeding  out 
perhaps  and  returning  to  it,  but  if  frightened 
by  prowlers,  huddling  there  to  starve.  Could 
it  be  the  survival,  not  of  a  wild  instinct,  —  it  is 
too  foolish  to  have  been  that,  —  but  of  the  cave- 
dwelling  time  when  man  protected  him  in  his 
stone  shelters  or  in  pens  built  against  the  base 
of  a  cliff,  as  we  see  the  herder  yet  for  greater 
convenience   build  rude  corrals  of  piled  bould- 


THE    FLOCK  121 

ers  at  the  foot  of  an  overlianging  or  insur- 
mountable rocky  wall  ?  It  is  yet  to  be  shown 
how  long  man  halted  in  the  period  of  stone 
dwelling  and  the  sheep  with  him  ;  but  if  it  be  as- 
sented that  we  have  brought  some  traces  of  that 
life  forward  with  us,  might  not  also  the  sheep  ? 
Where  the  wild  strain  most  persists  is  in  the 
bedding  habits  of  the  flock.  Still  they  take  for 
choice,  the  brow  of  a  rising  hill,  turning  out- 
ward toward  the  largest  view ;  and  nexer  have 
I  seen  the  flock  all  lie  down  at  one  time.  Al- 
ways as  if  by  prearrangement  some  will  stand, 
and  upon  their  surrendering  the  watch  others 
will  rise  in  their  places  headed  to  sniff  the 
tainted  wind  and  scan  the  rim  of  the  world. 
Like  a  thing  palpable  one  sees  the  racial  obli- 
gation pass  through  the  bedded  flock  ;  as  the 
tired  watcher  folds  his  knees  under  him  and 
lies  down,  it  passes  like  a  sigh.  By  some  mys- 
terious selection  it  leaves  a  hundred  ruminat- 
ing in  quietude  and  troubles  the  appointed  one. 
One  sees  in  the  shaking  of  his  sides  a  hint  of 
struggle  against  the  hereditary  and  so  unnec- 
essary instinct,  but  sighing  he  gets  upon  his 
feet.    By  noon  or  night  the  tlock  instinct  never 


122  THE   FLOCK 

sleeps.  Waking  and  falling  asleep,  waking  and 
spying  on  the  flock,  no  chance  discovers  the 
watchers  failing,  even  though  they  doze  upon 
their  feet;  and  by  nothing  so  much  is  the  want 
of  interrelation  of  the  herder  and  the  flock 
betrayed,  for  watching  is  the  trained  accom- 
plishment of  dogs. 

The  habit  of  nocturnal  feeding  is  easily 
resumed,  the  sheep  growing  restless  when 
the  moon  is  full,  and  moving  out  to  feed  at  the 
least  encouragement.  In  hot  seasons  on  the 
treeless  range  the  herder  takes  advantage  of 
it,  making  the  longer  siesta  of  the  burning 
noon.  But  if  the  habit  is  to  be  resumed  or 
broken  off,  it  is  best  done  by  moving  to  new 
grounds,  the  association  of  locality  being  most 
stubborn  to  overcome. 

Of  the  native  instincts  for  finding  water  and 
knowing  when  food  is  good  for  them,  herded 
goats  have  retained  much,  but  sheep  not  a 
whit.  In  the  open  San  Joaquin,  said  a  good 
shepherd  of  that  country,  when  the  wind  blew 
off  the  broad  lake,  his  sheep,  being  thirsty, 
would  break  and  run  as  much  as  a  mile  or  two 
in  that  direction  ;  but  it  seems  that  the  alkaline 


THE    FLOCK  123 

dust  of  the  desert  range  must  have  diminished 
the  keenness  of  smell,  for  Sanger  told  me  how, 
on  his  long  drive,  when  his  sheep  had  come 
forty  miles  without  drink  and  were  then  so 
near  a  water-hole  that  the  horses  scented  it 
and  pricked  up  their  ears,  the  flock  became 
unmanageable  from  thirst  and  broke  back  to 
the  place  where  they  had  last  drunk.  Great 
difficulty  is  experienced  in  the  desert  ranges  in 
getting  the  flock  to  water  situated  obscurely 
in  steep  ravines  ;  they  panting  with  water  need, 
but  not  even  aware  of  its  nearness  until  they 
have  been  fairly  thrust  into  it.  Then  if  one  lifts 
up  a  joyous  blat  the  dogs  and  the  herder  must 
stand  well  forward  to  prevent  suffocation  by 
piling  up  of  the  flock.  You  should  have  heard 
Jose  Jesus  Lopez  tell  how,  when  the  ten  thou- 
sand came  to  water  in  the  desert  after  a  day  or 
two  of  dry  travel,  when  the  first  of  the  nearing 
band  had  drunk  he  lifted  up  the  water  call; 
how  it  was  taken  up  and  carried  back  across 
the  shouldering  brutes  to  the  nearest  band  be- 
hind, and  by  them  flatly  trumpeted  to  the  next, 
and  so  across  the  mesa,  miles  and  miles  in  the 
still,  slant  light. 


124  THE    FLOCK 

When  Watterson  ran  his  sheep  on  the  plains 
he  watered  them  at  a  pump,  and  in  the  course 
of  the  season  all  the  bands  that  bore  the  Three 
Legs  of  Man  got  to  know  the  smell  pertaining 
to  that  brand,  drinking  at  the  troughs  as  they 
drew  in  at  sundown  from  the  feeding-ground. 
But  when  for  a  price  strange  bands  in  passing 
drank  there,  he  could  in  no  wise  prevail  upon 
his  own  sheep  to  drink  of  the  water  they  had 
left.  The  flocks  shuffled  in  and  sniffed  at  the 
tainted  drink  and  went  and  lay  down  waterless. 
The  second  band  drew  alongside  and  made  as 
if  to  refresh  themselves  at  the  troughs,  but 
before  they  had  so  much  as  smelled  of  it :  — 

Ba-a-a,  Ba-a-a-a !  blatted  the  first  flock,  and 
the  newcomers  turned  toward  them  and  lay 
down.  Comes  another  band  and  the  second 
takes  up  the  report,  not  having  proved  the 
event  but  accepting  it  at  hearsay  from  the 
first. 

Ba-a-a-a-d,  Ba-a-a-a-d  !  blat  the  watchers,  and 
when  that  has  happened  two  or  three  times 
the  shepherd  gives  over  trying  to  make  his 
sheep  accept  the  leavings  of  the  troughs,  what- 
ever the  price  of  water,  but  turns  it  out  upon 


THE    FLOCK  125 

the  sand.  Sheep  will  die  rather  than  drink 
water  which  does  not  please  them,  and  die 
drinking  water  with  which  they  should  not  be 
pleased.  Nor  can  they  discriminate  in  the  mat- 
ter of  poisonous  herbs.  In  the  northerly  Sier- 
ras they  perish  yearly,  cropping  the  azaleas  ; 
Julien  lost  three  or  four  hundred  when  wild 
tobacco  {nicoliana  attemcatd)  sprang  up  after 
a  season  of  tiood  water  below  Coyote  Holes  ; 
and  in  places  about  the  high  mountains  there 
are  certain  isolated  meadows  wherein  some 
herb  unidentified  by  sheepmen  works  disaster 
to  the  ignorant  or  too  confiding  herder.  Such 
places  come  to  be  known  as  Poison  Meadows, 
and  grasses  ripen  in  them  uncropped  year  after 
year.  Yet  it  would  seem  there  is  a  rag-tag  of 
instinct  left,  for  in  the  desert  regions  where 
sheep  have  had  a  taste  of  Loco-weed  [astra- 
galus) which  affects 
them  as  cocaine,  like 
the  devotees  of  that 
drug,  they  return  to 
seek  for  it  and  become 
dopy  and  worthless 
through  its  excess ;  and  a  tiock  that  has  suf 


126  THE    FLOCK 

fered  from  milkweed  poisoning  learns  at  last 
to  be  a  little  aware  of  it.  Old  tales  of  folk- 
lore would  have  us  to  understand  that  this 
atrophy  of  a  vital  sense  is  within  the  reach  of 
history.  Is  it  not  told  indeed,  in  Araby,  that 
the  exhilaration  of  coffee  was  discovered  by  a 
goatherd  from  the  behavior  of  his  goats  when 
they  had  cropped  the  berries  ? 

By  much  the  same  cry  that  apprises  the  flock 
of  tainted  drink  they  are  made  aware  of  stran- 
gers in  the  band.  This  is  chiefly  the  business 
of  yearlings,  wise  old  ewes  and  seasoned  weth- 
ers not  much  regarding  it.  One  of  the  band 
discerns  a  smell  not  the  smell  of  his  flock,  and 
bells  the  others  to  come  on  and  inquire.  They 
run  blatting  to  his  call  and  form  a  ring  about 
the  stranger,  vociferating  disapproval  until  the 
flock-mind  wakes  and  pricks  them  to  butt  the 
intruder  from  the  herd  ;  but  he  persisting  and 
hanging  on  the  outskirts  of  the  flock,  acquaints 
them  with  his  smell  and  becomes  finally  incor- 
porate in  the  band.  Nothing  else  but  the  rat- 
tlesnake extracts  this  note  of  protest  from  the 
flock.  Him  also  they  inclose  in  the  iioisy  ring 
until  the  rattler  wriggles  to  his  hole,  or  the 


THE    FLOCK 


127 


herder  comes  with  his  makila  and  puts  an  end 
to  the  commotion. 

It  is  well  to  keep  in  mind  that  ordinarily 
when  the  flock  cries  there  is  nothing  in  par- 
ticular the  matter  with  it.  The  continuous 
blether  of  the  evening  round-up  is  merely  the 
note  of  domesticity,  ewes  calling  to  their  lambs, 
wethers  to  their  companions  as  they  revolve  to 
their  accustomed  places,  all  a  little  resentful  of 
the  importunity  of  the  dogs.  In  sickness  and 
alarm  the  sheep  are  distressfully  still,  only 
milkweed  poisoning,  of  all  evils,  forcing  from 
them  a  kind  of  breathy  moan;  but  this  is  merely 
a  symptom  of  the  disorder  and  not  directed 
toward  the  procurement  of  relief. 

It  is  doubtful  if  the  herder  is  anything  more 
to    the   flock   than   an   incident  of  the  range. 


128  THE   FLOCK 

except  as  a  giver  of  salt,  for  the  only  cry  they 
make  to  him  is  the  salt  cry.  When  the  natural 
craving  is  at  the  point  of  urgency  they  circle 
about  his  camp  or  his  cabin,  leaving  off  feed- 
ing for  that  business ;  and  nothing  else  offer- 
ing, they  will  continue  this  headlong  circling 
about  a  boulder  or  any  object  bulking  large 
in  their  immediate  neighborhood  remotely  re- 
sembling the  appurtenances  of  man,  as  if  they 
had  learned  nothing  since  they  were  free  to 
find  licks  for  themselves,  except  that  salt  comes 
by  bestowal  and  in  conjunction  with  the  vaguely 
indeterminate  lumps  of  matter  that  associate 
with  man.  As  if  in  fifty  centuries  of  man-herd- 
ing they  had  made  but  one  step  out  of  the  ter- 
rible isolation  of  brute  species,  an  isolation 
impenetrable  except  by  fear  to  every  other 
brute,  but  now  admitting  the  fact  without 
knowledge,  of  the  God  of  the  Salt.  Accus- 
tomed to  receiving  this  miracle  on  open  bould- 
ers, when  the  craving  is  strong  upon  them 
they  seek  such  as  these  to  run  about,  vocifer- 
ating, as  if  they  said.  In  such  a  place  our  God 
has  been  wont  to  bless  us,  come  now  let  us 
greatly  entreat  Him.   This  one  quavering  bleat, 


THE    FLOCK  129 

unmistakable  to  the  sheepman  even  at  a  dis- 
tance, is  the  only  new  note  in  the  sheep's  vocab- 
ulary, and  the  only  one  which  passes  with  in- 
tention from  himself  to  man.  As  for  the  call 
of  distress  which  a  leader  raised  by  hand  may 
make  to  his  master,  it  is  not  new,  is  not  com- 
mon to  flock  usage,  and  is  swamped  utterly  in 
the  obsession  of  the  flock-mind. 

But  when  you  hear  shepherds  from  the  Pyre- 
nees speak  of  the  salt  call  it  is  no  blether  of 
the  sheep  they  mean,  but  that  long,  rolling, 
high  and  raucous  Ru-u-u-u-u-ii  by  which  they 
summon  the  flock  to  the  lick.  And  this  is  most 
curious  that  no  other  word  than  this  is  recos;- 
nized  as  exclusive  to  the  sheep,  as  we  under- 
stand "  scat "  to  be  the  peculiar  shibboleth  of 
cats,  and  "  bossy  "  the  only  proper  appellate  of 
cows.  Ordinarily  the  herder  does  not  wish  to 
call  the  sheep,  he  prefers  to  send  the  dogs,  but 
if  he  needs  must  name  them  he  cries  Sheep, 
sheep  !  or  motiton,  or  boregito,  as  his  tongue  is, 
or  apprises  them  of  the  distribution  of  salt  by 
beating  on  a  pan.  Only  the  Basco,  and  such 
French  as  have  learned  it  from  him,  troubles 
his  throat  with  this  searching,  mutilated  cry.    If 


I30  THE    FLOCK 

it  should  be  in  crossing  the  Reserve  when  the 
rangers  hurry  him,  or  on  the  range  when  in 
the  midst  of  security,  suddenly  he  discovers  the 
deadly  milkweed  growing  all  abroad,  or  if  above 
the  timber-line  one  of  the  quick,  downpouring 
storms  begins  to  shape  in  the  pure  aerial 
glooms,  at  once  you  see  the  herder  striding  at 
the  head  of  his  flock  drawing  them  on  with  the 
uplifted,  R71-21-U-UUUUU  !  and  all  the  sheep 
running  to  it  as  it  were  the  Pied  Piper  come 
again. 

Suppose  it  were  true  what  we  have  read,  that 
there  w^as  once  an  Atlantis  stationed  toward 
the  west,  continuing  the  empurpled  Pyrenees. 
Suppose  the  first  of  these  Pyrenean  folk  were, 
as  it  is  written,  just  Atlantean  shepherds  stray- 
ing farthest  from  that  happy  island,  when  the 
seas  engulfed  it ;  suppose  they  should  have  car- 
ried forward  with  the  inbred  shepherd  habit 
some  roots  of  speech,  likeliest  to  have  been 
such  as  belonged  to  shepherding  —  well  then, 
when  above  the  range  of  trees,  when  the  wild 
scarps  lift  rosily  through  the  ineffably  pure  blue 
of  the  twilight  earth,  suffused  with  splendor  of 
the  alpen  glow,  when  the  flock  crops  the  tufted 


THE    FLOCK  131 

grass  scattering  widely  on  the  steep,  should  you 
see  these  little  men  of  long  arms  leaping  among 
the  rocks  and  all  the  flock  lift  up  their  heads 
to  hear  the  \A\A2i\Aw<^  Ric-iMibru-ii-miu  !  would 
not  all  these  things  leap  together  in  your  mind 
and  seem  to  mean  something?  Just  suppose! 


VIII 


THE   GO-BETWEENS— A 

CHAPTER  TO  BE  OMITTED  BV 
THE  READER  WHO  HAS  NOT 
LOVED  A  DOG. 


CHAPTER   VIII 


THE    GO-BETWEENS 


What  one  wishes  to  know  is  just  what  the 
dog  means  to  the  flock.  It  might  be  something 
of  what  the  dark  means  to  man,  the  mould  of 
fear,  the  racial  memory  of  the  shape  in  which 
Terror  first  beset  them.  It  is  as  easy  to  see 
what  the  flock  means  to  the  dog  as  to  under- 
stand what  it  meant  before  man  went  about  this 
business  of  perverting  the  Original  Intention. 
If  it  is  a  trick  man  has  played  upon  the  dog  to 
constitute  him  the  guardian  of  his  natural 
prey,  he  has  also  been  played  upon,  for  even 


136  THE    FLOCK 

as  men  proved  their  God  on  the  persons  of 
the  brethren  and  exterminated  tribes  to  show 
how  great  He  was,  latterly  they  afflict  them- 
selves to  offer  up  the  heathen  scathless  and 
comforted. 

Now  that  in  the  room  of  the  Primal  Impulse, 
the  herder  is  the  god  of  the  sheep  dog,  the 
flock  is  become  an  oblation.  The  ministrant 
waits  with  pricked  ears  and  an  expectant  eye 
the  motion  of  his  deity;  he  invites  orders  by 
eagerness ;  he  worries  the  sheep  by  the  zeal- 
ousness  of  care;  that  not  one  may  escape  he 
threads  ev^ery  wandering  scent  and  trails  it 
back  to  the  flock.  In  short,  when  in  the  best 
temper  for  his  work  he  frequently  becomes  use- 
less from  excess  of  use.  But  in  the  half  a  hun- 
dred centuries  that  have  gone  to  perverting  his 
native  instincts,  the  sheep  have  hardly  come 
so  far.  They  no  longer  flee  the  herd  dog,  but 
neither  do  they  run  to  him.  When  he  rounds 
them  they  turn  ;  when  he  speaks  they  tremble  ; 
when  he  snaps  they  leave  off  feeding  ;  but  when 
they  hear  his  cousin-german,  the  coyote,  pad- 
ding about  them  in  the  dark,  they  trust  only  to 
fleeing.    For  this  is  the  apotheosis  of  the  dog, 


THE    GO-l^KTWEKXS  137 

that  he  fights  his  own  kind  for  the  flock,  but 
the  liock  does  not  know  it. 

It  is  notable  that  the  best  sheep  dogs  are 
most  like  wolves  in  habit,  the  erect  triangular 
ears,  the  long  thin  muzzle,  the  sag  of  the  bushy 
tail,  the  thick  mane-like  hackles;  as  if  it  were 
on  the  particular  aptness  for  knowing  the  ways 
of  flocking  beasts  developed  by  successful 
wolves  that  the  effective  collie  is  moulded.  No 
particular  breed  of  dogs  is  favored  by  the 
herders  hereabout,  though  Scotch  strains  pre- 
dominate. Amonor  the  Frenchmen  a  small 
short-tailed,  black-and-white  type  is  seen  often- 
est,  a  pinto  with  white  about  the  eyes.  One 
may  pay  as  much  as  five  dollars  or  five  hundred 
for  a  six  months'  pup,  but  mostly  the  herders 
breed  their  own  stock  and  exchansre  amons^ 
themselves.  Ordinarily  the  dog  goes  with  the 
fiock,  is  the  property  of  the  ov>:ier,  for  sheep 
learn  to  know  their  own  guardian  and  suffer 
an  accession  of  timidity  if  a  stranger  is  set  over 
them. 

The  herder  who  brings  up  a  dog  by  hand 
loves  it  surpassingly.  There  was  one  of  my 
acquaintance  had  so  great  an  attachment   for 


138  THE    FLOCK 

a  bitch  called  Jehane  that  he  worked  long  for 
a  hard  master  and  yearly  tendered  him  the  full 
of  his  wage  if  only  he  might  have  Jehane  and 
depart  with  her  to  a  better  employment.  He 
was  not  single  in  his  belief  that  Jehane  re- 
garded him  with  a  like  affection,  for  the  faith  a 
herder  arrows  to  have  in  the  do"'s  understand- 
ing  is  only  exceeded  by  the  miracle  of  com- 
munication. To  see  three  or  four  shepherds 
met  in  a  district  of  good  pastures,  leaning  on 
their  staves,  each  with  a  dog  at  his  knees  quick 
and  attentive  to  the  talk,  is  to  go  a  long  way 
toward  conviction. 

Many  years  ago,  but  not  so  long  that  he  can 
recall  it  without  sorrow,  Giraud  lost  a  dog  on 
Kern  River.  There  had  come  one  of  the  sud- 
den storms  of  that  district,  white  blasts  of  hail 
and  a  nipping  wind ;  it  was  important  to  get 
the  sheep  speedily  to  lower  ground.  The  dog 
was  ailins:  and  fell  behind  somewhere  in  the 
white  swarm  of  the  snow.  When  it  lay  soft  and 
quiet  over  all  that  region  and  the  flock  was 
bedded  far  below  it  in  the  canon,  Giraud  re- 
turned to  the  upper  river,  seeking  and  calling; 
twenty  days  he   quested    bootless   about    the 


THE    GO-BETWEENS 


139 


meadows  and  among  the  cold  camps.  More  he 
could  not  have  done  for  a  brother,  for  Pierre 
Giraud  was  not  then  the  owner  of  good  acres 
and  well-fleeced  Merinos  that  he  is  now,  and 
twenty  days  of  a  shepherd's  time  is  more  than 
the  price  of  a  dog.  "  And  still,"  Pierre  finishes 
his  story  simply,  "  whenever  I  go  by  that  coun- 
try of  Kern  River  I  think  of  my  dog." 

Curiously,  the  obligation  of  his  work  —  who 
shall  say  it  is  not  that  higher  form  of  habit  out 
of  which  the  sense  of  duty  shapes  itself  .f*  —  is 
always  stronger  in  the  dog  than  the  love  of  the 
herder.  Lacking  a  direct  command,  in  any 
severance  of  their  interests,  the  collie  stays  by 
the  sheep.  In  that  same  country  of  young  roar- 
ing rivers  a  shepherd  died  suddenly  in  his 
camp  and  was  not  found  for  two  days.    The 


I40  THE    FLOCK 

flock  was  gone  on  from  the  meadow  where  he 
lay,  straying  toward  high  places  as  shepherd- 
less  sheep  will,  and  the  dogs  with  them.  They 
had  returned  to  lick  the  dead  face  of  the  herder, 
no  doubt  they  had  mourned  above  him  in  their 
fashion  in  the  dusk  of  pines,  but  though  they 
could  win  no  authority  from  him  they  stayed 
by  the  flock.  So  they  did  when  the  two  herds- 
men of  Barret's  were  frozen  on  their  feet 
while  still  faithfully  rounding  the  sheep;  they 
dropped  stilly  in  their  places  and  were  over- 
blown by  the  snow.  The  dogs  had  scraped  the 
drifts  from  their  bodies,  and  the  sheep  had 
trampled  mindlessly  on  the  straightened  forms, 
but  at  the  end  of  the  third  day  when  succor 
found  them,  the  dogs  had  come  a  flock-journey 
from  that  place  and  had  turned  the  sheep 
toward  home.  This  is  as  long  as  can  be  proved 
that  the  sense  of  responsibility  to  the  flock 
stays  with  the  dog  when  he  feels  himself  aban- 
doned by  his  over-lord. 

A  dog  might  remain  indefinitely  with  the 
sheep  because  he  has  the  habit  of  association, 
but  the  service  of  herding  is  rendered  only  at 
the  lidding  of  the  gods.    The  superintendent 


THE    GO-BETWEENS  141 

of  Tejon  told  me  of  a  dog  that  could  be  trusted 
to  take  a  bunch  of  muttons  that  had  been  cut 
out  for  use  at  the  ranch  house,  and  from  any 
point  on  the  range,  drive  them  a  whole  day's 
journey  at  his  order,  and  bring  them  safely  to 
the  home  corral.  Sen  or  Lopez,  I  think,  re- 
lated of  another  that  it  was  sent  out  to  hunt 
estrays,  and  not  returning,  was  hunted  for  and 
found  warding  a  ewe  and  twin  lambs,  licking 
his  wounds  and  sniffing,  not  without  the  ap- 
pearance of  satisfaction,  at  a  newly  killed  coy- 
ote. The  dog  must  have  found  the  ewe  in 
travail,  for  the  lambs  were  but  a  few  hours  old, 
and  been  made  aware  of  it  by  what  absolute 
and  elemental  means  who  shall  say,  and  stood 
guarding  the  event  through  the  night. 

At  Los  Alisos  there  was  a  bitch  of  such  ex- 
cellent temper  that  she  was  thought  of  more 
value  for  raising  pups  than  herding ;  she  was, 
therefore,  when  her  litter  came,  taken  from  the 
flock  and  given  quarters  at  the  ranch  house. 
But  in  the  morning  Flora  went  out  to  the  sheep. 
She  sought  them  in  the  pastures  where  they 
had  been,  and  kept  the  accustomed  round,  re- 
turning wearied  to  her  young  at  noon;  she  fol- 


142  THE    FLOCK 

lowed  after  them  at  evening  and  covered  with 
panting  sides  the  distance  they  had  put  be- 
tween them  and  her  Htter.  At  the  end  of  the 
second  day  when  she  came  to  her  bed,  half 
dead  with  running,  she  was  tied,  but  gnawed 
the  rope,  and  in  twenty-four  hours  was  out  on 
the  cold  trail  of  the  flock.  One  of  the  vaqueros 
found  her  twenty  miles  from  home,  working 
faint  and  frenzied  over  its  vanishing  scent.  It 
was  only  after  this  fruitless  sally  that  she  was 
reconciled  to  her  new  estate. 

Now  consider  that  we  have  very  many  high 
and  brave  phrases  for  such  performances  when 
they  pertain  to  two-footed  beings  who  grow 
hair  on  their  heads  only,  and  are  disallowed 
the  use  of  them  for  the  four-foots  that  have 
hair  all  over  them.  Duty,  chivalry,  sacrifice, 
these  are  words  sacred  to  the  man  things.  But 
how  shall  one  lovino-  definiteness  consis^n  to 
the  loose  limbo  of  instinct  all  the  qualities 
engendered  in  the  intelligence  of  the  dog  by 
the  mind  of  man.^*  For  it  is  incontrovertible 
that  a  good  sheep  dog  is  made. 

The  propensity  to  herd  is  fixed  in  the  breed. 
Some    unaccountably  in  any  litter  will    have 


THE    GO-BETWEENS  143 

missed  the  possibility  of  being  good  at  it,  and 
a  collie  that  is  not  good  for  a  herd  dog  is  good 
for  nothing.  The  only  thing  to  do  with  the 
born  incompetent  is  to  shoot  it  or  give  it  to 
the  children  ;  in  the  bringing  up  of  a  family 
almost  any  dog  is  better  than  no  dog  at  all. 
What  good  breeding  means  in  a  young  collie 
is  not  that  he  is  fit  to  herd  sheep,  but  that  he 
is  fit  to  be  trained  to  it.  Aptitude  he  may  be 
born  with,  but  can  in  no  wise  dispense  with 
the  hand  of  the  herder  over  him.  What  we 
need  is  a  new  vocabulary  for  the  larger  estate 
which  a  dog  takes  on  when  he  is  tamed  by  a 
man. 

Training  here  is  not  carried  to  so  fine  a 
pitch  as  abroad,  most  owners  not  desiring  too 
dependable  a  dog.  The  herder  is  the  more 
likely  to  leave  the  flock  too  much  to  his  care, 
and  whatever  a  sheep  dog  may  learn,  it  is  never 
to  discriminate  in  the  matter  of  pasture.  An 
excellent  collie  makes  an  indolent  herder. 

Every  man  who  follows  after  sheep  will  tell 
you  how  he  thinks  he  trains  his  pups,  and  of 
all  the  means  variously  expounded  there  are 
two  that  are  constant.    It  is  important  that  the 


144  THE    FLOCK 

dog  acquire  early  the  habit  of  association,  and 
to  this  purpose  herders  will  often  carry  a  pup 
in  the  cayaca  and  suckle  it  to  a  goat.  Most 
important  is  it  that  he  shall  learn  to  return  of 
his  own  motion  to  the  master  for  deserved 
chastisement.  To  accomplish  this  the  dog  is 
tied  with  suf^cient  ropeway  and  punished  until 
he  discovers  that  the  ease  of  his  distress  is  to 
come  straightly  to  the  hand  that  afflicts  him. 
He  is  to  be  tied  long  to  allow  him  room  for 
volition  and  tied  securely  that  he  may  not 
once  get  clean  away  from  the  trainer's  hand. 
Once  a  dog,  through  fear  or  the  sense  of  anger 
incurred,  escapes  his  master  for  a  space  of 
hours,  there  is  not  much  to  be  done  by  way  of 
retrievement.  It  is  as  if  the  impalpable  bridge 
between  his  mind  and  the  mind  of  man,  being 
broken  by  the  act,  is  never  to  be  built  again. 
For  this  in  fine  is  what  constitutes  a  good  herd 
dog,  to  be  wholly  open  to  the  suggestion  of 
the  man-mind,  and  carry  its  will  to  the  flock. 
His  is  the  service  of  the  Go-Between.  Not 
that  he  knows  or  cares  what  becomes  of  the 
flock,  but  merely  what  the  herder  intends 
toward  it. 


THE    GO-lii:T\Vl{I-:NS  145 

I  have  said  the  shepherd  will  tell  you  how  he 
thinks  he  trains  his  collies,  for  watching  them 
I  srow  certain  that  more  sroes  forward  than 
the  herder  is  rightly  aware.  Working  commu- 
nication between  them  is  largely  by  signs,  since 
the  dog  manoeuvres  at  the  distance  of  a  flock- 
length,  taking  orders  from  the  herder's  arm. 
Every  movement  of  the  flock  can  be  so  effected, 
but  if  the  herder  would  have  barking,  he  must 
say  to  him,  Speak,  and  he  speaks.  The  teach- 
ing methods  seem  not  to  be  contrived  by  any 
rule,  as  if  everv  man  fumblino;  at  the  dog's 
understanding  had  hit  upon  a  device  which 
seemed  to  accomplish  his  end,  and  might  or 
mio'ht  not  serve  the  next  adventure.  You  would 
not  suppose  in  any  other  case  that  by  waving 
arms,  buffets,  pettings,  and  retrievings,  and  by 
no  other  means,  so  much  could  be  communi- 
cable in  violation  to  racial  instincts,  with  no 
root  in  experience  and  only  a  possible  one  in 
the  generational  memory ;  nor  do  I  for  one  sup- 
pose it.  Moreover  it  sticks  in  my  mind  that  I 
have  never  seen  one  herd  dog  instruct  another 
even  by  the  implication  of  behaving  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  invite  imitation. 


146  THE    FLOCK 

Bobcats  I  have  seen  teaching  their  kittens 
to  seek  prey,  young  eagles  coached  at  flying, 
coyote  cubs  remanded  to  the  trail  with  a  snarl 
when  wishful  to  leave  it;  but  never  the  sheep 
dog  teaching  her  young  to  round  and  guard. 
In  this  all  the  shepherds  of  the  Long  Trail 
bear  me  out.  Assuredly  the  least  intelligent 
dog  learns  something  by  imitation  ;  to  be  con- 
vinced of  it  one  has  only  to  note  the  assumed 
postures,  the  look  as  of  a  very  deaf  person 
who  wishes  to  have  you  believe  that  he  has 
heard,  the  self-2:ratulation  when  some  tentative 
motion  proves  acceptable,  the  tolerable  assump- 
tion when  it  fails  that  the  sally  has  been  under- 
taken merely  by  way  of  entertainment.  But 
with  it  all  no  intention  of  being  imitated. 

Since  all  these  things  are  so,  how  then  can 
a  shepherd  say  to  the  Go- Between  what  the 
dog  cannot  say  to  another  dog?  It  is  not  alto- 
gether that  they  lack  speech,  for,  as  I  say,  the 
work  of  herding  goes  on  by  signs,  and  I  have 
come  to  an  excellent  understanding  with  some 
collies  that  know  only  Basque  and  a  patois 
that  is  not  the  P'"rench  of  the  books.  Fellow- 
ship is  helped  by  conversation,  though  it  is  not 


THE    GO-BETWEENS  147 

indispensable,  and  if  the  herder  has  an  arm  to 
wave  has  not  the  dog  a  tail  to  wag  ?  If  he  reads 
the  face  of  his  master,  and  who  that  has  been 
loved  by  a  dog  but  believes  him  amenable  to  a 
smile  or  a  frown,  may  he  not  so  learn  the  coun- 
tenance of  his  blood  brother?  Notwithstand- 
ing, the  desire  of  the  shepherd  which  the  dog 
bears  to  the  sheep  remains  with  respect  to  other 
dogs,  like  the  personal  revelation  of  a  deity, 
locked,  incommunicable.  He  arises  to  the  man 
virtues  so  long  as  the  man's  command,  or  the 
echo  of  it,  lies  in  his  consciousness.  But  we, 
when  we  have  arrived  at  the  pitch  of  conserv- 
ing what  was  once  our  study  to  destroy,  con- 
ceive that  we  have  done  it  of  ourselves. 

What  a  herd  dog  has  first  to  learn  is  to 
know  every  one  of  two  to  three  hundred  sheep, 
and  to  know  them  both  by  sight  and  smell. 
This  he  does  thorouo'hlv.  When  Watterson 
was  running  sheep  on  the  plains  he  had  a 
young  collie  not  yet  put  to  the  herd  but  kept 
about  the  pumping  plant.  As  the  sheep  came 
in  by  hundreds  to  the  troughs,  the  dog  grew 
so  to  know  them  that  when  they  had  picked 


148  THE    FLOCK 

up  an  estray  from  another  band  he  discovered  it 
from  afar  off,  and  darting  as  a  hornet,  nipping 
and  yelping,  parted  it  out  from  the  band.  At 
that  time  no  mere  man  would  have  pretended 
without  the  aid  of  the  brand  to  recognize  any 
of  the  thousands  that  bore  it. 

How  long  recollection  stays  by  the  dog  is 
not  certain,  but  at  least  a  twelvemonth,  as  was 
proved  to  Filon  Gerard  after  he  had  lost  a 
third  of  his  band  when  the  Santa  Anna  came 
roaring  up  by  Lone  Pine  with  a  cloud  of  saf- 
fron-colored dust  on  its  wings.  After  shearing 
of  next  year,  passing  close  to  another  band, 
Filon's  dogs  set  themselves  unbidden  to  routing 
out  of  it,  and  rounding  with  their  own,  nearly 
twenty  head  which  the  herder,  being  an  honest 
man,  freely  admitted  he  had  picked  up  on  the 
mesa  following  after  Filon  the  spring  before. 

Quick  to  know  the  willful  and  unbidable 
members  of  a  flock,  the  wise  collie  is  not  spar- 
ins:  of  bites,  and  followino-  after  a  stubborn 
estray  will  often  throw  it,  and  stand  guard  until 
help  arrives,  or  the  sheep  shows  a  better  mind. 
But  the  herder  who  has  a  dog  trained  at  the 
difficult  work  of  herding  range  sheep  through 


THE    GO-BETWEENS 


149 


the  chutes  and  runwa3\s  into  boats  and  cars  for 
transportation  is  the  fortunate  fellow. 

There  was  Pete's  dog,  Bourdaloue,  that,  at 
the  Stockton  landing,  with  no  assistance,  put 
eight  hundred  wild  sheep  from  the  highlands 
on  the  boat  in  eight  minutes,  by  running  along 
the  backs  of  the  flock  until  he  had  picked  out 
the  stubborn  or  stupid  leaders  that  caused  the 
sheep  to  jam  in  the  runway,  and  by  sharp  bites 
set  them  forward,  himself  treading  the  backs 
of  the  racing  flock,  like  the  premier  equestri- 
enne of  the  circus,  which  all  the  men  of  the 
shipping  cheered  to  see. 

In  shaping  his  work  to  the  land  he  moves  in, 
an  old  wolf-habit 
of  the  sheep  dog 
comes  into  play. 
From  knowing  how 
to  leap  up  in  mid- 
run  to  keep  sight 
of  small  quarry,  the 
collie  has  learned  to 
mount  on  stumps 
and  boulders  to  ob- 
serve the  flock.    So  he  does  in  the  sao;e  and 


ISO  THE    FLOCK 

chamisal,  and  of  greater  necessity  years  ago  in 
the  coast  ranges  where  the  mustard  engulfed 
the  flock  until  their  whereabouts  could  be 
known  only  by  the  swaying  of  its  bloom. 
Julien,  the  good  shepherd  of  Lone  Pine,  had 
a  little  dog,  much  loved,  that  would  come  and 
bark  to  be  taken  up  on  his  master's  shoulder 
that  he  might  better  judge  how  his  work  lay. 
The  propensity  of  sheep  to  fall  over  one 
another  into  a  pit  whenever  occasion  offers 
is  as  well  noted  by  the  dog  as  the  owner;  so 
that  there  was  once  a  collie  of  Hittell's  of  such 
flock-wisdom  that  at  a  point  in  a  certain  drive 
where  an  accident  had  occurred  by  the  sheep 
being  gulched,  he  never  failed  afterward  to 
2fo  forward  and  sfuard  the  bank  until  the  flock 

o  o 

had  gone  by. 

Footsoreness  is  the  worst  evil  of  the  Long 
Trail ;  cactus  thorn,  foxtail,  and  sharp,  hot 
granite  sands  induce  so  great  distress  that  to 
remedy  it  the  shepherd  makes  moccasins  of  deer- 
skin for  his  dogs.  Once  having  experience  of 
these  comforts  the  collie  returns  to  the  herder  s 
knee  and  lifts  up  his  paws  as  a  gentle  invita- 
tion to  have  them  on  when  the  trail  begins  to 


THE    GO-BETWEENS  151 

wear.  On  his  long  drive  Sanger  had  slung  a 
rawhide  under  the  wagon  to  carry  brushwood 
for  the  fire,  but  the  dogs  soon  discovered  in  it 
a  material  easement  of  their  fatigues,  and 
would  lie  in  it  while  the  team  went  forward, 
each  collie  rousting  out  his  confrere  and  insist- 
ing on  his  turn. 

When  one  falls  in  with  a  sheep  camp  it  is 
always  well  to  inquire  concerning  the  dogs;  the 
herder  who  will  not  talk  of  anything  else  will 
talk  of  these.  You  bend  back  the  springy 
sage  to  sit  upon,  the  shepherd  sits  on  a  brown 
boulder  with  his  staff  between  his  knees,  the 
dogs  at  his  feet,  ears  pointed  with  attention. 
He  unfolds  his  cigarette  papers  and  fumbles 
for  the  sack. 

"  Eh,  my  tobacco  ?  I  have  left  it  at  the  camp ; 
go,  Pinto,  and  fetch  it." 

Away  races  the  collie,  pleased  as  a  patted 
schoolboy,  and  comes  back  with  the  tobacco 
between  his  jaws. 

"  I  must  tell  you  a  story  of  that  misbegotten 
devil  of  a  he  goat,  Noe,"  says  the  shepherd, 
rolling  a  cigarette;  "  you,  go  and  fetch  Noe  that 
Madame-who-writes-the-book  may  see." 


152  THE    FLOCK 

In  a  jiffy  the  dog  has  nipped  Noe  by  the 
ankles  and  cut  him  out  of  the  band,  but  you 
will  have  to  ask  again  before  you  get  your  story, 
for  it  is  not  Noe  the  shepherd  has  in  mind.  In 
reality  he  is  bursting  with  pride  of  his  dog,  and 
thinks  only  to  exhibit  him. 

It  is  the  expansiveness  of  affection  that  ele- 
vates the  customary  performance  to  an  achieve- 
ment. As  for  the  other  man's  dog,  why  should 
it  not  do  well?  unless  his  master  being  a  dull 
fellow  has  spent  his  pains  to  no  end.  But  in 
the  Pinto  there  with  the  listening  ears  and 
muzzle  delicately  pointed  and  inquiring,  with 
the  eye  confident  and  restrained  as  expressing 
the  suspension  of  communication  rather  than 
its  incompleteness,  you  perceive  at  once  a  tan- 
gible and  exceptionable  distinction. 


IX 


THE     STRIFE    OF     THE 
HERDSMEN  — now  the 

GREAT  GAME  IS  PLAYED  IX 
THE  FREE  PASTURES,  AND 
THE  cattlemen's  WAR. 


CHAPTER    IX 


THE    STRIFE    OF    THE    HERDSMEN 


The  mesa  was  blue  with  the  Httle  blue  larkspur 
the  Indians  love;  a  larkspur  sky  began  some- 
where infinitely  beyond  the  Sierra  wall  and 
stretched  far  and  faintly  over  Shoshone  Land. 
The  ring  of  the  horizon  was  as  blue  as  the 
smoke  of  the  deputy  sheriff's  cigar  as  he  lay  in 
the  shade  of  a  boulder  and  guessed  almost  by 
the  manner  of  the  dust  how  many  and  what 
brands  stirred  up  the  visible  warning  of  their 
approach.  The  spring  passage  of  the  flocks 
had  begun,  and  we  were  out  after  the  tax. 


156 


THE    FLOCK 


r 


Two  banners  of  dust  went  up  in  the  gaps  of 
the  Alabamas  and  one  below  the  point,  two  at 
Symmes  Creek,  one  crowded  up  under  Wil- 
Hamson,  one  by  the  new  Hne  of  willows  below 
Pinon,  that  by  the  time  the  shadows  of  the 
mountains  had  shrunk  into  their  crevices, 
proved  by  the  sound  of  the  bells  to  be  the  flock 
of  Narcisse  Duplin.  The  bell  of  Narcisse's 
best  leader,  Le  Petit  Corporal,  was  notable ; 
large  as  a  goat-skin  wine-bottle,  narrowing  at 
the  mouth,  and  so  long  that  it  scraped  the  sand 
when  the  Corporal  browsed  on  the  bitter  brush 
and  lay  quite  along  the  ground  when  he  cropped 
the  grass.  The  sound  of  it  struck  deeply  under 
all  the  notes  of  the  day,  and  carried  as  far  as 
the  noise  of  the  \vater  pouring  into  the  pot-hole 
below  Kearsarge  Mill. 

The  deputy  sheriff  had  finished  his  cigar, 
and  begun  telling  me  about  Manuel  de  Borba 
after  he  had  killed  Mariana  in  the  open  below 
Olancha.  Naylor  and  Robinson  bought  the 
flock  of  him  in  good  faith,  though  suspicion 
began  to  grow  in  them  as  they  came  north 
with  it  toward  the  place  where  Mariana  lived  ; 
then  it  spread  in  Lone  Pine  until  it  became 


THE    STRIFE    OF   THE    HERDSMEN     157 

a  rumor  and  finally  a  conviction.  Then  Relies 
Carrasco  took  up  the  back  trail  and  found,  at 
the  end  of  it,  Mariana  lying  out  in  the  sage, 
full  of  knife  wounds,  and  the  wounds  were  in 
his  back.  When  the  deputy  had  proceeded  as 
far  as  the  search  for  de  Borba,  Narcisse  came 
up  with  us. 

Where  we  sat  the  wash  of  Pine  Creek  was 
shallow,  and  below  lav  the  rude,  totterins^  brid2:e 
of  sticks  and  stones,  such  as  sheepmen  build 
everywhere  in  the  Sierras  for  getting  sheep 
across  troublesome  streams.  Here  in  the  course 
of  the  day  came  all  the  flocks  we  sighted,  with 
others  drifting  into  view  in  the  south,  and  at 
twilight  tide  a  dozen  of  their  fires  blossomed 
under  Kearsarge  in  the  dusk.  The  sheriff 
counted  the  sheep  as  they  went  singly  over  the 
bridge,  with  his  eyes  half  shut  against  the  sun 
and  his  finger  wagging ;  as  for  me,  I  went  up 
and  down  among  the  larkspur  flowers,  among 
the  lupines  and  the  shining  bubbles  of  mariposa 
floating  along  the  tops  of  the  scrub,  and  renewed 
acquaintance. 

"Tell  me,"  I  said  to  Narcisse,  who  because  of 
the  tawny  red  of  his  hair,  the  fiery  red  of  his 


158  THE    FLOCK 

face,  the  russet  red  of  his  beard,  and  the  red 
spark  of  his  eye,  was  called  Narcisse  the  Red, 
"tell  me  what  is  the  worst  of  shepherding?" 

"  The  worst,  madame,  is  the  feed,  because 
there  is  not  enough  of  it." 

"  And  what,  in  your  thinking,  is  the  best?" 

"  The  feed,  madame,  for  there  is  not  enough 
of  it." 

"  But  how  could  that  be,  both  best  and 
worst  ?  " 

Narcisse  laughed  full  and  throatily,  throw- 
ing up  his  chin  from  the  burned  red  chest  all 
open  to  the  sun.  It  was  that  laugh  of  Nar- 
cisse's  that  betrayed  him  the  night  he  carried 
away  Suzon  Moynier  from  her  father's  house. 

"  It  is  the  worst,"  said  he,  ''because  it  is  a 
srreat  distress  to  see  the  flock  iio  huno-rv,  also 
it  is  a  loss  to  the  owner.  It  is  the  best,  be- 
cause every  man  must  set  his  wits  against 
every  other.  When  he  comes  out  of  the  hills 
with  a  fat  flock  and  good  fieeces  it  is  that  he 
has  proved  himself  the  better  man.  He  knows 
the  country  better  and  has  the  greater  skill  to 
keep  other  men  from  liis  pastures.  How  else 
but   by  contriving   shall  a  man   get   the  feed 


THE    STRIFE    OF    THE    HERDSMEN     159 

from  the  free  pastures  when  it  goes  every  year 
to  the  best  contriver?  You  think  you  would 
not  do  it  ?  Suppose  now  you  have  come  with 
a  lean  flock  to  good  ground  sufficient  for  yours 
onl}^  and  before  the  sheep  have  had  a  fill  of  it, 
comes  another  blatting  band  working  against 
the  wind.  You  walk  to  and  fro  behind  your 
flock,  you  take  out  a  newspaper  to  read,  you 
unfold  it.  Suddenly  the  wind  takes  it  from 
your  hand,  carries  it  rustling  white  and  fear- 
some in  the  faces  of  the  approaching  flock. 
Ah,  bah !  Who  would  have  supposed  they 
would  stampede  for  so  slight  a  thing  ?  And  by 
the  time  their  herder  has  rounded  them  up, 
your  sheep  will  have  all  the  feed." 

When  Narcisse  Duplin  tells  me  this  the 
eyes  of  all  the  herders  twinkle;  glints  of  amuse- 
ment run  from  one  to  another  like  white  hints 
of  motion  in  the  water  below  the  birches. 

"  It  is  so,"  said  Octavieu,  the  blue-eyed 
Basque,  "  the  feed  is  his  who  can  keep  it. 
Madame  goes  much  about  the  Sierras,  have 
you  not  seen  the  false  monuments  ?  " 

"  And  been  misled  by  them." 

"They  were  not  meant  for  such  as  madame. 


i6o 


THE    FLOCK 


but  one  shepherd  when  he  finds  a  good  meadow 
makes  a  false  trail  leading  around  and  away 
from  it,  and  another  shepherd  coming  is  de- 
ceived thereby,  and  the  meadow  is  kept  secret 
for  the  finder." 

When  Octavieu  tells  me  this  I  recall  a  story 
I  have  heard  of  Little  Pete,  how  when  he  had 
turned  his  flocks  into  an  upper  meadow  he  met 
a  herder  bound  to  that  same  feeding-ground, 
and  by  a  shorter  route  ;  but  the  day  saved  him. 
No  matter  how  much  they  neglect  the  calen- 
dar, French  shepherds  always  know  when  it  is 
the  fourteenth  of  July,  as  if  they  had  a  sense 
for  divining  it  much  as  gophers  know  when 
taboosc  is  good  to  eat.  Pete  dug  up  a  bottle 
from  his  cayaques. 

"  A  lions,  man  vicux,  cest  le  quatorze  yitilletl' 

cried  the  strate- 
gist ;  "  come,   a 
toast ;  Le  Qua- 
toj^zc  Juillet !  " 
"  Le        Qua- 
toi^zc  Jtcillet  I " 
The    red    liquor   gurgled    in    their    throats. 
Never   yet    was  a   Frenchman    proof   against 


THE    STRIFE    OF   THE    HERDSMEN     i6i 

patriotism  and  wine  and  good  company.  The 
arrested  flock  shuffled  and  sighed  while  Pete 
and  their  master  through  the  rosy  glow  of  wine 
saw  the  Bastile  come  down  and  the  Tricolor 
go  up.  Incidentally  they  saw  also  the  bottom 
of  the  bottle,  and  by  that  time  Pete's  flock  was 
in  full  possession  of  the  meadow.  Pete  laughs 
at  this  story  and  denies  it,  but  so  light-heart- 
edly that  I  am  sure  that  if  it  never  happened 
it  was  because  he  happened  never  to  think 
of  it. 

"  However,  I  will  tell  you  a  true  story,"  said 
he.  "  I  was  once  in  a  country  where  there  was 
a  meadow  with  springs  and  much  good  feed  in 
that  neighborhood,  but  unwatered,  so  that  if 
a  man  had  not  the  use  of  the  meadow  he  could 
get  no  good  of  it.  The  place  where  the  spring 
was,  being  patented  land,  belonged  to  a  man 
whose  name  does  not  come  into  the  story.  I 
write  to  that  man  and  make  him  a  price  for  the 
water  and  the  feed,  but  the  answer  is  not  come. 
Still  I  think  sure  to  have  it,  and  leave  word 
that  the  letter  is  to  be  sent  to  me  at  the  camp, 
and  move  my  flock  every  day  toward  the 
meadow.     Also   I   observe   another  sheepman 


i62  THE    FLOCK 

feeding  about  my  trail,  and  I  wish  greatly  for 
that  letter,  for  I  think  he  makes  the  eyes  at 
that  pasture  with  springs. 

"All  this  would  be  no  matter  if  I  could  trust 
my  herder,  but  I  have  seen  him  sit  by  the 
other  man's  fire,  and  I  know  that  he  has  what 
you  call  the  grudge  against  me.  For  what  ? 
How  should  I  know  ?  Maybe  there  is  not 
garlic  enough  in  camp,  maybe  I  keep  the  wine 
too  close ;  and  it  is  written  in  the  foreheads  of 
some  men  that  they  should  be  false  to  their 
employers.  When  it  is  the  better  part  of  a 
week  gone  I  am  sure  that  my  herder  has  told 
the  other  man  that  I  have  not  yet  rented  the 
springs,  so  I  resolve  at  night  in  my  blanket 
what  I  shall  do.  That  day  I  send  out  my  man 
with  his  part  of  the  sheep  very  far,  then  I  write 
me  a  letter,  to  me,  Pierre  Giraud,  and  put  it  in 
the  camp.  It  is  stamped,  and  altogether  such 
as  if  it  had  come  from  the  Post  Office.  Then 
I  ride  about  my  business  for  the  day,  and  at 
night  when  I  come  late  to  the  camp  there  is 
the  herder  who  sings  out  to  me  and  says :  — 

"'  Here  is  your  letter  come.' " 

Pete   chuckles    inwardly  with    true   artistic 


THE    STRIFE    OF   THE    HERDSMEN     163 

appreciation  of  finesse.  "  Eh,  if  you  do  this 
sort  of  thing  it  should  be  done  thoroughly. 
I  see  the  herder  watch  me  with  the  tail  of  his 
eye  w^hile  I  make  to  read  the  letter. 

" '  Is  it  rifjht  about  the  meadow? '  savs  he. 

"  '  You  can  see,'  say  I,  and  I  hand  him  the 
paper,  which  he  cannot  read,  but  he  will  not 
confess  to  that.  That  niiiht  he  o'oes  to  the 
other  man's  fire,  and  the  next  day  I  see  that 
that  one  drops  off  from  my  trail,  and  I  know 
he  has  had  word  of  my  letter.  Then  I  move  my 
sheep  up  to  the  meadow  of  springs." 

"And  the  real  letter,  when  it  came  —  if  it 
canie } " 

"That  you  should  ask  me!"  cries  Pete,  and 
I  am  not  sure  if  I  am  the  more  convinced  by 
the  reproachful  waggings  of  his  head  or  the 
deep,  delighted  twinkle  of  his  eye. 


In  the  flanking  ranges  east  from  the  Sierras 
are  few  and  far  between  water-holes  the  posses- 
sion of  which  dominates  great  acreage  of  tol- 
erable feed.  For  the  control  of  them  the  herders 
strive  together  as  the  servants  of  Abraham  and 
Abimelech  for  the  wells  which  Abrahan^  digged. 


1 64  THE    FLOCK 

There  was  a  herder  once  out  of  Dauphiny  who 
went  toward  Panamint  and  found  a  spring  of 
sweet  water  in  a  secret  place.  The  pasture 
of  that  country  was  bunch  grass  and  mesquite, 
and  the  water  welled  up  from  under  the  lava 
rock  and  went  about  the  meadow  to  water  it. 
When  he  had  fed  there  for  a  fortnight  and 
there  was  still  grazing  in  the  neighborhood  for 
a  month  more,  he  looked  out  across  the  mes- 
quite dunes  and  saw  the  dust  of  a  flock.  Then 
he  considered  and  took  a  pail  and  went  a  long 
way  out  to  meet  it.  Where  the  trail  of  the 
sheep  turned  into  the  place  of  the  secret 
spring,  but  more  than  a  mile  from  it,  there 
was  also  a  pool  of  seepage  water,  but  muddied 
and  trampled  by  the  sheep.  When  he  had 
come  to  this  place  the  shepherd  scooped  out 
a  hollow  and  made  believe  to  dip  up  the  water 
where  it  ran  defiled  into  the  hole  he  had  digged, 
while  the  stranger  came  on  with  his  flock. 

It  seems  that  at  shearino^s  and  lambino^  where 
they  met  they  were  very  good  friends,  but  on 
the  range  — 

"  How  goes  the  feed,  inon  viatx?'' 

"  Excellently  well,  inon  amir 


THE    STRIFE   OF   THE    HERDSMEN     165 

"  And  the  water?  " 

"  Ah,  vou  can  see."  The  herder  cast  a  con- 
templative  eye  at  the  turgid  liquid  in  the  pail ; 
assuredly  no  sheep  would  drink  of  it.  Also  he 
looked  at  the  feed  and  sighed,  for  it  was  good 
feed,  but  one  really  must  have  water. 

"  I  think  of  moving  to-da}'',"  said  the  first 
shepherd,  but  the  second  drew  off  his  flock  at 
once  and  returned  by  another  trail. 

The  desire  to  be  beforehand  with  the  feed 
becomes  an  obsession ;  herders  of  the  same 
owner  will  crowd  each  other  off  the  range. 
The  Manxman  told  me  that  once  he  had  a 
head  shepherd  who  played  the  flocks  in  his 
chars^e  one  aoainst  another,  like  a  man  cheat- 
ing  himself  at  solitaire,  Thouo;h  there  ori'ows 
tacitly  among  the  better  class  of  sheepmen  the 
understanding  that  long-continued  use  estab- 
lishes a  sort  of  priority  in  the  pastures,  among 
themselves  the  herders  will  still  be  "  hosfOfingr 
the  feed." 

When  Sanger  went  on  his  little  exodus  to 
Montana,  he  went  out  by  way  of  Deep  Springs 
Valley  to  cross  Nevada,  that  same  valley  where 
Harry  Quinn,  hoping  for  winter  pastures  in  '74, 


i66  THE    FLOCK 

lost  all  but  twenty-two  hundred  out  of  a  flock 
of  twenty-two  thousand  in  the  only  deep  snow 
that  fell  there,  drifting  over  the  low,  stubby 
shrubs  shoulder  high  to  the  sheep.  When 
Sanger  first  broke  trail  across  it  there  was 
feed  enough,  more  than  enough,  if  pastured 
fairly  ;  but  out  of  Deep  Springs  came  another 
shepherd,  taking  the  same  general  direction, 
but  forging  always  ahead,  forcing  his  flock  out 
by  dawn  light  to  get  the  top  of  the  grazing. 
Sanger  considered  and  made  sure  of  the  other 
man's  intention.  Presently  they  came  to  a 
pleasant  place  of  springs. 

"  Now,"  said  Sanger,  hiding  his  purpose  be- 
hind the  honestest  blue  eyes  and  an  open  Ger- 
man countenance,  "  the  feed  is  good  and  I  can 
rest  here  some  days."  So  assured,  the  enemy 
slept  with  his  flock  and  w^oke  late  to  see  the 
dust  of  Sanger's  sheep,  kept  moving  in  the 
night,  vanishing  northward  on  his  horizon. 
And  Sanger  is  not  the  only  man  who  has  been 
sharpened  to  the  business  by  being  first  a  set- 
tler in  the  time  when  every  season  called  for 
some  new  contrivance  against  the  herder's  plan 
of  feeding  out  the  homesteader  ;  though  when 


THE    STRIFE    OF   THE    HERDSMEN     167 

he  became  a  sheepman  it  is  doubtful  if  he 
could  have  been  drawn  off  from  pasture  by  his 
own  device  of  sprinkling  salt  on  the  range  in 
the  face  of  the  herders  so.  that  they  turned  their 
flocks  away  from  that  country  in  great  alarm, 
reporting  the  feed  to  be  poisoned,  a  reprisal 
not  uncommon  in  the  early  sixties. 

It  is  also  allowable,  finding  intruders  on  your 
accustomed  ground,  to  burn  their  corrals  and 
destroy  their  bridges.  Meaner  measures  than 
this  are  not  often  resorted  to,  though  there  are 
instances. 

One  of  the  guardians  of  the  flock  whose 
brand  is  the  Three  Legs  of  Man,  working  up 
a  shallow  caiion  toward  the  summer  meadows, 
found  a  pertinacious  Portuguese  herder  feeding 
in  that  direction.  The  flocks  of  the  Manxman 
had  the  advantage  of  the  near  side  of  the 
caiion,  and  all  the  clear  afternoon  they  manoeu- 
vred forth  and  back  to  keep  in  front  of  the 
Portuguese,  he  drawing  close  until  the  com- 
mingling dust  of  their  bands  hid  all  his  motions 
in  a  golden  blurr.  They  looked  for  him  to 
break  through  at  this  point,  or  for  some  mis- 
chief which    should    stampede   the  dock,  but 


i68  THE    PXOCK 

nothing  other  than  the  quickened  scurry  of 
feet  and  the  jangle  of  the  bells  came  out  of 
the  thick  haze  of  dust.  When  it  cleared,  the 
enemy  was  shown  to  have  turned  off  sharply 
in  retreat.  The  rate  of  his  going,  as  well  as 
the  unexpectedness  of  it,  bred  suspicion.  Not, 
however,  until  the  Manxman  rounded  up  did 
he  discover  that  the  fellow  had.  under  cover  of 
the  dust,  incorporated  with  his  own  band  and 
carried  away  a  bunch  of  best  merinos. 

Recovery  of  stolen  sheep,  detected  in  time, 
is  not  difificult ;  a  much  harder  matter  for  the 
shepherd  to  explain  how  sheep  not  of  his 
brand  came  in  his  keeping.  If  he  is  sensible 
he  does  not  try  to  do  so,  and  if  they  have  come 
legitimately  as  being  gathered  up  after  a  storm, 
accepts  a  small  sum  for  their  care  and  restores 
them  to  the  claimant.  If,  however,  they  have 
been  passed  to  an  accomplice  and  out  of  the 
country,  rebranded  and  marked  anew,  there  is 
little  to  be  done  about  it.  For  the  most  part, 
all  the  business  amenities  prevail  on  the  open 
range,  for  this  also  is  a  part  of  the  Great 
Game. 

Every  quarter  section  of  land  in  the  neigh- 


THE    STRIFE    OF   THE    HERDSMEN     169 

borhood  of  a  watershed  is  potentially  irrigable 
and  attracts  settlement.  We  breed  yearly 
enough  men  of  such  large  hopefulness  as  to  be 
willing  to  live  on  that  possibility,  or  of  an  in- 
curable inability  to  live  anywhere  else.  Ordi- 
narily they  put  more  zest  into  the  struggle  for 
the  use  of  grazing  lands  that  they  do  not  own 
than  improving  those  they  do,  but  here  in  Cal- 
ifornia there  has  not  been  between  these  and 
the  cattlemen  the  bitterness  and  violence  that 
grow  out  of  the  struggle  for  the  range  in  Mon- 
tana and  Arizona.  But  for  the  sake  of  what  I 
shall  have  to  say  touching  the  matter  of  the 
Forest  Reserves,  I  shall  put  the  case  to  you  as 
it  is  handed  up  to  me  by  men  whose  business 
has  been  much  about  the  open  range.  In  this 
it  is  well  to  be  explicit  though  I  appear  as  a 
mere  recorder. 

Two  years  out  of  three  there  is  not  pasture 
enough  for  the  whole  number  of  flocks  and 
herds  to  grow  fat.  In  good  seasons  they  feed 
in  the  same  district  without  interference,  but 
sheep  are  close  croppers,  and  in  excessive  dry 
years  cut  off  the  hope  of  renewal  by  eating 
into  the  root-stocks  of  the   creeping  grasses. 


I/O  THE    FLOCK 

Their  droppings  also  are  an  offense,  and  being 
herded  in  a  bunch  they  defile  the  whole  ground. 
After  rains  the  grass  springs  afresh  and  the 
scent  passes  into  the  earth,  but  in  the  rainless 
Southwest  it  lies  long  and  renders  objectionable 
the  scanty  grass.  Set  against  this  that  cattle 
perform  the  same  office  of  fouling  the  pastures, 
so  that  even  in  starvation  times  one  notes  the 
flock  veering  away  from  the  fresh  rings  of  grass 
where  cattle  have  passed ;  also  the  horned 
cattle  love  oozy  standing  ground,  and  work 
even  their  own  distress  by  trampling  out  the 
springs.  In  the  Southwest  where  the  land  is 
not  able  to  bear  them  because  of  their  numbers 
and  the  sheep  get  advantage  by  reason  of  their 
close  method  of  herding,  the  cattlemen  retort 
with  violence.  They  charge  the  flock  and  run 
it  over  a  cliff,  or  breaking  into  the  corrals  en- 
gage in  disgusting  butchery  the  like  of  which 
has  not  yet  been  imputed  to  herders.  Also 
there  have  been  killings  of  men,  herders 
dropped  stilly  in  the  middle  of  the  flock,  cow- 
boys crumpling  forward  in  the  saddle  at  the 
crossing  of  the  trails. 

The    mutual  offenses    being  as   I  have  set 


THE    STRIFE    OF   THE    HERDSMEN     171 

them  forth,  it.  is  to  be  seen  that  much  is  to  be 
imputed  to  mere  greed  and  the  desire  for  mas- 
tery. Moreover  it  is  indisputably  allowed  by 
cowmen  that  they  are  inherently,  and  on  all 
occasions,  better  than  any  sheepman  that  ever 
lived.  I  being  of  neither  party  will  not  sub- 
scribe to  it,  for  the  seed  of  that  ferment  which 
makes  caste  betw^een  classes  of  men,  the  sums 
of  whose  intelligence  and  right  dealing  are  not 
appreciably  different,  is  not  in  me. 

Just  at  this  point  it  is  well  to  recall  that  of 
all  the  men  who  grow  rich  by  hides  and  fleeces, 
not  one  in  ten  does  so  on  his  own  land.  All 
these  millions  of  acres  of  mesquite  and  sage 
and  herd  grass  and  alfilaria  belong  to  Us. 
Supinely  we  let  them  out  to  be  the  prize  of 
trickery  and  violence.    That  is  why  there  can 


l;-i^S!' 


mil- 1 


172 


THE    FLOCK 


be  so  few  reprisals  at  law  for  offenses  done  on 
the  ranore.    What  is  no  man's  no  man  can  be 

O 

remanded  for  taking  strongly.  Consider  then 
the  simplicity  of  allotting  fixed  pastures  of  pub- 
lic lands  by  rental.  But  the  present  arrange- 
ment is  our  superior  way  of  being  flock-minded. 


X 


^#:^'*#' 


i^>.^^^^i^^ 


LIERS-IN-WAIT  — WHAT  thev 

DO  TO  THE  FLOCK,  AND  WHAT 
THE  SHEPHERD  DOES  TO  THEM. 


'^                      ^» 

-  jfnH 

p^'^ 

CHAPTER    X 


LIERS-IN-WAIT 


There  is  a  writer  of  most  agreeable  animal 
stories  who  takes  pains  modestly  to  disclaim 
any  participation  in  the  event,  but  in  fact  he 
need  hardly  be  at  so  much  trouble.  It  is  not 
the  man  to  whom  such  adventures  occur  as  by 
right  who  makes  a  pretty  tale  of  them,  and  I 
am  oftenest  convinced  of  the  truth  of  an  inci- 
dent in  an  ancient  piece  of  writing  rather  mis- 
doubted these  wordy  days,  because  it  is  so  much 
in  the  manner  of  people  to  whom  these  things 
happen  in  their  way  of  life.    It  is  also  an  ex- 


176  THE   FLOCK 

cellent  model  for  an  animal  story  and  is  told 
in  three  sentences  : 

"  Then  went  Samson  down  ...  to  Timnath 
.  .  .  and  behold  a  young  lion  roared  against 
him.  .  .  .  And  he  rent  him  as  he  would  have 
rent  a  kid  .  .  .  but  he  told  not  his  father  or 
his  mother  what  he  had  done." 

"  Jean  Baptiste,"  say  I,  "  where  did  you  get 
that  splendid  lynx  skin  in  your  cayaca  ?  " 

"  Eh,  it  was  below  Olancha  about  moonrise 
that  he  sprung  on  the  fattest  of  my  lambs.  I 
gave  him  a  crack  with  my  staff,  and  the  dogs 
did  the  rest." 

You  will  hardly  get  a  more  prolix  account 
from  any  herder,  though  there  are  enough  of 
these  tufted  lynxes  about  the  dry  washes  to 
make  their  pelts  no  uncommon  plunder  of  the 
camps.  It  is  only  against  man  contrivances, 
such  as  a  wool  tariff  or  a  new  ruling  of  the 
Forestry  Bureau,  that  the  herder  becomes 
loquacious.  Wildcats,  cougars,  coyotes,  and 
bears  are  merely  incidents  of  the  day's  work, 
like  putting  on  stiff  boots  of  a  cold  morning, 
running  out  of  garlic,  or  having  the  ewes  cast 
their  lambs.    As  for  weather  stress,  they  endure 


LIERS-IX-\VAIT  177 

it  much  in  the  fashion  of  their  own  sheep, 
which  if  they  can  get  their  heads  in  cover  make 
no  to-do  of  the  rest  of  them. 

Of  four-footed  plagues  the  coyote  is  worst 
by  numbers  and  incalculable  cunning;  and  of 
him  there  is  much  that  may  be  said  to  a 
friend  able  to  dispense  with  the  multiplication 
of  instances. 

In  seventeen  years  a  hill  frequenter  is  not 
without  occasion  to  listen  at  lairs  when  the 
sucking  pups  tumble  about  and  nip  and  whine 
under  a  breath  ;  to  observe  how  they  endure 
captivity  among  the  wickiups  or  at  some 
Greaser's  hut ;  to  fall  in  with  them  going 
across  country  and  not  be  shunned,  they  under- 
standing perfectly  that  skirts  and  a  gun  go 
infrequently  together;  to  hear  by  night  the 
yelping  two-toned  howl  by  which  they  deceive 
as  to  numbers,  the  modulations  by  which  they 
contrive  to  make  it  appear  to  come  from  near 
or  far,  but  never  absolutely  at  the  point  from 
which  it  issues.  And  one  has  not  to  hear  it 
often  to  distinguish  the  choppy  bark  by  which 
the  dog  of  the  wilderness  defies  the  camp  from 
the  long,  whining  howl  that  calls  up  a  shape 


178  THE    FLOCK 

like  his  shape  from  the  waste  of  warm,  scented 
dusk. 

On  the  high  mesas  when  the  thick  cloud- 
mist  closes  on  three  sides  of  the  trail,  a  coyote 
coming  out  of  it  unexpectedly  trots  aside  with 
dropped  head  or  turns  inquiringly  with  a  clipped 
noise  in  his  throat  like  a  man  accosting  a  wo- 
man on  the  street  before  he  is  quite  sure  what 
sort  she  is,  and  may  wish  his  hail  to  seem 
merely  an  inadvertence.  But  with  all  this, 
there  is  not  the  hint  of  any  sound  by  which 
they  talk  comfortably  together.  Nothing  passes 
between  them  but  the  fanged  snarl  when  they 
fight,  and  the  long,  demoniac  cry  of  the  range. 

Once  when  there  was  a  pestilence  among 
the  rabbits  so  that  they  died  in  inconceivable 
numbers,  lying  out  a  long  time  on  the  bank  of  a 
wash  under  the  Bigelovia  to  discern,  if  I  might, 
the  behavior  of  scathless  rabbits  toward  those 
that  were  afflicted  ;  lying  very  still  toward  the 
end  of  the  afternoon,  a  coyote  came  down  the 
wash,  trotting  leisurely  with  picked  steps,  as  if 
he  had  just  come  from  his  lair,  and  not  quite 
certain  what  he  should  be  about.  At  that  mo- 
ment another  crossed  his  trail  at  right  angles, 


LIERS-IN-WAIT  179 

trotting  steadily  as  one  sure  of  his  errand. 
They  came  within  some  feet  of  each  other,  the 
nostrils  of  both  twitched,  they  turned  toward 
each  other  with  a  look,  lono-  and  considering 
—  ah,  such  a  look  as  I  had  from  you  just  now, 
when  I  said  that  about  the  likeness  of  a  man 
to  a  coyote,  intelligence  deepening  in  the  eye 
to  a  divination  of  more  than  the  fact  says.  And 
at  this  look  which  hung  in  suspense  for  the 
smallest  wink  of  time,  the  one  coyote  fell  in 
behind  the  other  and  continued  out  of  sight, 
trotting  with  the  same  manner  of  intention 
toward  the  same  unguessed  objective.  Their 
jaws  were  shut,  no  sound  loud  enough  to  be 
heard  at  twenty  feet  passed  between  them  ;  but 
this  w-as  open  to  understanding,  that  whereas 
one  of  them  before  that  look  exhibited  no  sense 
of  intention,  they  were  now  both  of  the  same 
mind.  And  if  we  cast  out  all  but  the  most 
obvious,  and  say  it  signifies  no  more  than  that 
one  followed  the  other  on  the  mere  chance  of 
its  being  worth  while,  we  are  only  the  more  at 
a  loss  to  account  for  all  that  they  do  to  the 
sheep. 

Knowing  the  trick  of  frightened  sheep  to  run 


i8o  THE    FLOCK 

down  hill  and  scatter  as  they  descend,  coyotes 
always  attack  on  the  lower  side,  and  shepherds 
in  a  hill  country  camp  below  the  flock  to  pre- 
vent them.  Though  seven  is  the  largest  pack 
I  can  attest  to,  they  are  reported  to  harry  the 
sheep  in  greater  numbers,  and  so  rapid  is  the 
flash  of  intelligence  between  them  that  on  the 
scattering  of  the  flock,  when  one  lamb  or  sev- 
eral are  to  be  cut  out,  it  is  always  by  concerted 
action  ;  and  in  longer  runnings  the  relays  are 
seen  to  be  so  well  arranged  for  that  no  herder 
who  has  lost  by  them  instances  a  failure  that 
can  be  laid  to  the  want  of  foreplanning.  It  is 
hardly  the  question  whether  coyotes  in  a  raid 
will  get  any  of  your  lambs,  but  how  few. 

Once  slaughter  is  begim  it  is  continued  with 
great  wastefulness  unless  arrested  by  the  dogs. 
The  coyotes  understand  very  well  how  to  esti- 
mate the  strength  of  this  defense,  and  finding 
attack  not  feasible,  love  to  stand  off  in  the 
thick  dark  and  vituperate.  No  dog  can  forbear 
to  answer  their  abuse  with  like  revilings,  and 
it  is  understood  by  them  that  when  coyotes 
bark  they  do  not  mean  thieving.  Now  this  is 
most  interesting,  that  the  coyotes  know  that 


LIERS-IN-\VAIT  i8r 

they  have  made  the  dogs  so  beheve.  Not  only 
have  they  learned  the  ways  of  sheep  and  sheep 
dogs,  but  also  —  and  this  is  going  a  step  beyond 
some  people  —  they  are  able  to  realize  and  play 
upon  the  dog's  notion  of  themselves.  So  on 
a  niorht  when  there  is  no  sound  from  the  flock 
but  the  roll  of  the  dreaming  bells,  warm  glooms 
in  the  hollows  and  a  wind  on  the  hill,  three  or 
four  of  the  howlers  slip  to  the  least  assailable 
side  of  the  flock  and  there  draw  the  dogs  by 
feints  of  attack  and  derisive  yelpings.  Then 
the  rest  of  the  pack  cut  noiselessly  into  the 
fiock  on  its  unguarded  quarter  and  make  a  suf- 
ficient killing.  And  all  this  time  the  coyotes 
have  not  said  a  word  to  one  another. 

A  trick  the  herder  has  imposed  on  the  sheep 
by  way  of  frustrating  attack  is  to  form  the 
flock  with  the  heads  all  turned  in,  the  dogs 
being  trained,  on  the  hint  of  coyotes  hunting, 
to  run  about  the  closed  herd  and  nip  the  fro- 
ward  members  until  the  throats,  the  vulnerable 
point,  are  turned  away  from  the  enemy.  A 
coyote  will  always  be  at  considerable  pains  to 
provoke  a  suitable  posture  for  attack. 

But  there  are  no  such  killings  now  as  in  the 


I82 


THE    FLOCK 


time  when  Jewett  destroyed  eight  hundred 
coyotes  in  two  years  at  Rio  Bravo,  and  in  all 
that  time  was  unable  to  keep  any  dogs,  so 
plentifully  was  the  range  spread  with  poison-ed 
meat  for  the  lean-flanked  rogues. 

They  are  still  worst  at  the  spring  season 
when  the  young  are  in  the  lair  and  about  the 
skirts  of  the  mountains  below  the  pines,  for 
the  snow  prevents  their  inhabiting  high  regions 
except  briefly  in  mid-season ;  and  on  the  plains 
where  water-holes  are  far  between  they  will 
not  follow  after  the  flocks,  for  meat-eaters  must 
drink  directly  they  have  eaten. 

Wanton  killers  as  the  coyotes  are,  one  bob- 
cat can   often  work  greater  destruction   in   a 

single  night,  for  it 
comes  softly  on  the 
flock,  does  not  scat- 
ter it,  kills  quickly 
without  alarm,  and 
since  cats  take  little 
besides  the  blood 
and  soft  parts  of  the  throat,  one  requires  a 
cood  bunch  of  lambs  for  a  meal.  Both  cats 
and  cougars  have  a  superior  cunning  to  creep 


LIERS  IN-WAIT  183 

into  the  flock  unbeknown  to  the  dogs,  and  the 
cougars,  at  least,  go  in  companies ;  so  if  they 
manage  not  to  stir  the  sheep  and  set  the  bells 
ringing  to  alarm  the  herder  they  get  away  un- 
hurt with  their  kill.  A  cous^ar  will  hansf  about 
a  flock  for  days,  taking  night  after  night  a 
fresh  wether  of  a  hundred  pounds  weight, 
throwing  it  across  his  shoulder  and  carrying 
it  miles  to  his  young  in  the  lair,  with  hardly 
so  much  as  a  dragging  foot  to  mark  his  trail. 
It  is  chiefly  by  tracking  them  home  or  by 
poisoning  the  kill  which  the  beast  returns  to, 
that  the  herder  is  avengred ;  for  in  the  nio;ht 
lit  faintly  by  cold  stars,  when  the  flock  mills 
stupidly  in  its  tracks  with  the  cougar  killing 
quietly  in  its  midst,  a  gun  is  no  sort  of  a 
weapon  to  deal  with  such  trouble.  Jewett  re- 
ports four  of  these  lion-coated  pirates  visiting 
his  corral  in  a  single  night,  each  jumping  the 
four-board  fence  and  making  off  with  a  well- 
grown  mutton  ;  and  on  another  occasion  the 
loss  of  sixty  grown  sheep  in  a  night  to  the 
same  enemy. 

It   is   the  conviction   of  most  herders  that 
all  the  slinking  cat-kind  are  cowardly  beasts, 


i84  THE    FLOCK 

though  stubborn  to  leave  the  kill  unsatisfied, 
valuing  their  skins  greatly,  and  even  when 
attacked,  fighting  only  to  open  a  line  of  re- 
treat. You  will  hear  no  end  of  incidents  to 
convince  you  of  this,  but  find  if  you  swing  the 
talk  to  bears  that  the  herder's  knowledge  of 
them  is  like  the  ordinary  man's  understanding 
of  wool  tariff  reforms,  contradictious  general- 
ities in  which  he  dares  particularize  only  from 
personal  experience.  A  bear,  it  seems,  can,  if 
he  wishes,  get  his  half-ton  of  weight  over  the 
ground  with  the  inconceivable  lightness  of  the 
wind  on  the  herd  grass ;  but  he  does  not  often 
so  wish.  He  may  carry  his  kill  to  his  den  or 
elect  to  eat  it  in  the  herder's  sight,  growling 
thunderously.  He  may  be  scared  from  his 
purpose  by  the  mere  twirling  of  your  staff  with 
shouts  and  laughter,  and  when  he  has  gone 
a  little  way  decide  to  return  with  wickedness 
glowing  phosphorescently  in  the  bottoms  of  his 
little  pig's  eyes,  and  grievously  affiict  the  in- 
sulter.  At  one  time  the  snapping  of  a  wee  bit 
collie  at  his  heels  sends  him  shuffling  embar- 
rassedly  along  the  trail,  and  at  another  he  sits 
back  on  his  haunches  inviting  attack,  ripping 


LIERS-IN-WAIT 


185 


open  clogs  with  great  bats  of  his  paws,  or  snatch- 
ing them  to  his  bosom  with  engulfing  and  dis- 
astrous hugs.  He  is  not  crafty  in  his  killings, 
but  if  he  finds  the  mutton  tender  will  return 
to  it  with  more  bears,  making  two  and  three 
fiock-journeys  in  a  night. 

Singular,  even  terrifying,  as  evincing  the 
insuperable  isolation  of  man,  is  the  unaware- 
ness  of  the  wild  kindred  toward  the  shepherd's 
interests,  his  claims,  his  relation  to  the  fiock. 
The  coyote  alone  exhibits  a  hint  of  reprisal  in 
that  he  nesflects  not  to  defile  the  corners  of 
the  herder's  camp  and  scratch  dirt  upon  his 
belongings,  but  to  the  rest  he  is,  it  appears,  no 
more  than  a  customary  incident  of  the  flock,  as 
it  misht  be  blue  flies  buzzino:  about  the  kill. 
All   their  strategies  are   directed   toward   not 


i86  THE    FLOCK 

arousing  the  dogs,  man  being  uneatable,  though 
annoying,  not  necessar}^  to  be  closed  with  ex- 
cept in  the  last  resort. 

All  these  years  afford  me  no  more  than  two 
incidents  of  herders  being  damaged  by  beasts, 
one  in  Kern  River  having  come  to  close  quar- 
ters with  a  wounded  bear  which  the  dogs 
finally  drew  off,  but  not  until  the  man's  hurts 
were  past  curing.  Yet  in  that  region  bears 
are  so  plentiful  that  they  come  strolling  harm- 
lessly across  the  recumbent  shepherds  in  the 
night,  or  burn  themselves  with  savory  hot 
frying-pans  lifted  from  the  fire  when  the 
herder's  back  is  turned.  Or  so  it  was  in  the 
days  before  the  summer  camper  found  that 
country. 

At  San  Emigdio  a  she  bear  brought  down 
her  cubs  on  a  moonless  night  to  teach  them 
killing,  and  Chabot,  the  herder,  waked  by  the 
sound  of  running,  hearing  her  snuffling  about 
the  flock,  set  on  the  dogs  and  himself  attacked 
with  his  staff.  This  he  would  never  have 
done  had  he  been  aware  of  the  cubs,  for  though 
a  2:rown  bear  suffers  cudoelinc^  with  tolerable 
good  humor,  she  will  not  endure  that  it  should 


LIERS-IN-WAIT  187 

threaten  her  young.  Therefore,  Chabot  car- 
ried the  marks  of  that  indiscretion  to  his  grave. 
But  if  you  could  conceive  of  the  ravagers 
of  the  sheep-pens  being  communicative,  it  is 
plain  that  they  would  remark  only,  with  some 
wonderment,  but  no  recognition  of  its  rela- 
tivity, the  irritating  frequency  with  which  man- 
things  are  to  be  found  in  the  vicinity  of  flocks. 


XI 


THE    SHEEP   AND   THE 
RESERVES 


CHAPTER    XI 


THE    SHEEP    AND    THE    RESERVES 


When  the  Yosemite  National  Park  was  first 
set  apart,  I  said  to  a  shepherd  who  was  used 
to  make  his  summer  grazing  there, — 

"What  shall  you  do  now,  Jacques?"  — 
Jacques  not  being  his  real  name,  as  you  will 
readily  understand,  seeing  the  thing  I  have  to 
relate  of  him.  Jacques  threw  up  his  head  from 
his  hairy  throat  with  a  laugh. 

"  I  shall  feed  my  sheep,"  he  said,  •'  I  shall  feed 
them  in  the  meadow  under  the  dome,  in  the 


192  THE    FLOCK 

pleasant  meadows  where  my  camp  is,  where 
I  have  fed  them  fifteen  years." 

"  But  the  Park,  Jacques,  do  you  not  know 
that  it  is  closed  to  the  sheep  and  the  whole  line 
of  it  patroled  by  soldiers?  " 

"  Nevertheless,"  said  the  shepherd,  "  I  shall 
go  in." 

Afterwards  I  learned  that  he  had  done  so, 
and  at  other  times  other  shepherds  had  fed 
there,  and  at  times  the  newspapers  had  a  note 
to  the  effect  that  sheep  had  been  caught  in  the 
Park  Reserve  and  driven  out.  Sierra  lovers 
who  frequented  the  valley  of  falling  waters  came 
often  upon  fresh  signs  of  flocks  and  spoke  freely 
of  these  things,  which,  however,  did  not  reach 
to  places  of  authority.  There  was  a  waif  word 
going  about  sheep  camps,  and  now  and  then 
a  herder  who,  when  he  had  two  thirds  of  a  bot- 
tle of  claret  in  him,  waswillinc:  to  make  stranQ-e 
admissions. 

"  Five  gallons  of  whiskey,"  said  Jacques,  "  I 
pay  to  get  in  and  take  my  own  chance  of  being 
found  and  forced  out.  We  take  off  the  bells 
and  are  careful  of  the  fires.  Last  year  I  was 
in  and  the  year  before,  but  this  summer  some 


THE    SHEEP   AND    THE    RESERVES     193 

fools  going  about  with  a  camera  found  me  and 
I  was  made  to  travel.  Etarre  was  in,  and  the 
Chatellard  brothers." 

"  And  did  these  all  pay }  " 

"  How  should  I  know  ?  They  would  not  pay 
unless  they  had  to.  But  it  is  small  enough  for 
two  months'  feed ;  and  if  the  officers  found  us 
we  had  only  to  move  on." 

All  the  gossip  of  the  range  is  by  way  of 
proving  that  the  shepherd  spoke  the  truth.  It 
is  not  impossible  that  the  soldiers  despised 
too  much  the  work  of  warding  sheep  off  the 
grass  in  order  that  silly  tourists  might  wonder 
at  the  meadows  full  of  bloom.  The  men  rode 
smartly  two  and  two  along  the  Park  boundary; 
one  day  they  rode  forward  on  their  appointed  beat 
and  the  next  day  they  rode  back.  Always  there 
w^as  a  good  stretch  of  unguarded  ground  behind 
them  and  before.  If  they  found  tracks  of  a 
flock  crossing  their  track  they  had  no  orders 
to  leave  the  patrol  to  go  after  it ;  they  might 
report  —  but  if  it  were  made  more  comfortable 
not  to  ?  This  is  not  to  say  that  all  the  enlisted 
men  of  that  detachment  could  be  bought,  — 
and  for  whiskey  too !   But  in  fact  a  flock  can 


194  THE    FLOCK 

cross  a  given  line  in  a  very  narrow  file,  and  it 
was  not  necessary  that  more  than  two  or  three 
of  the  patrol  should  be  complaisant. 

During  the  Cuban  war,  the  military  being 
drawn  off  for  a  business  better  suited  to  their 
degree,  and  the  Park  left  to  insufficient  war- 
dens, the  sheep  surged  into  it  from  all  quarters. 
They  snatched  what  they  could,  and  when 
routed  went  a  fiock-length  out  of  sight  and 
returned  to  the  forbidden  pastures  by  a  secret 
way.  I  dwell  upon  this,  for  it  was  here  and  by 
this  mismanagement  that  the  foundation  was 
laid  for  the  depredations,  the  annoyance,  and 
misunderstanding  that  still  make  heavy  the 
days  of  the  forest  ranger. 

After  the  return  of  the  soldiery,  enforce- 
ments were  stricter  but  trespasses  made  more 
persistent  by  a  season  of  dry  years  that  short- 
ened the  feed  on  the  outside  range.  The  sheep- 
men were  not  alone  in  esteeming  the  segrega- 
tion of  the  Park  for  the  use  of  a  few  beauty- 
loving  folk,  as  against  its  natural  use  as  pasture, 
rather  a  silly  performance.  No  proper  penal- 
ties were  provided  for  being  caught  grazing  on 
the  reserve.    An  ordinance  slackly  enforced  is 


THE   SHEEP   AND   THE    RESERVES     195 

lightly  respected.  More  than  that,  sheepmen 
who  had  by  long  custom  established  a  sort  of 
right  to  those  particular  pastures  considered 
themselves  personally  misused.  They  must  now 
resort  to  infringement  on  the  grazing  rights  of 
others  or  be  put  out  of  business  ;  not,  however, 
before  they  had  made  an  efTort  and  a  tolerably 
successful  one,  to  break  back  to  the  forbidden 
ground. 

All  this  time  there  were  going  on  in  Cali- 
fornia remote  and  incalculable  activities  that 
should  turn  the  general  attention  at  last  toward 
the  source  of  waters.  One  feels  perhaps  that  we 
affect  to  despise  business  too  much  ;  it  is  in 
fact  the  tool  by  which  the  commonalty  carves 
toward  achievements  too  big  for  their  under- 
standing, which  they  laugh  at  while  forw^ard- 
ing.  At  this  time  and  for  some  years  before, 
in  all  the  towns  of  the  San  Gabriel  and  the  San 
Joaquin  and  the  coastward  valleys  there  were 
men  going  about  on  errands  of  the  business 
sense,  seeing  no  farther  than  their  noses,  per- 
ceiving no  end  to  their  adventure  other  than 
the  pit  of  their  own  pockets,  denying  and  not 
infrequently  contriving  against  the  larger  pur- 


196  THE    FLOCK 

pose  which  they  served.  The  bland  Promoter 
who  sold  irrigable  lands  for  a  price  that  made 
the  buyer  gasp,  and  while  he  was  gone  around 
the  block  to  catch  his  breath  raised  it  a  hun- 
dred per  cent,  hastened,  though  unaware,  the 
conservation  of  the  natural  forests.  Incidentally 
he  worked  the  doom  of  the  hobo  herds. 

It  is  fortunate  that  the  heads  of  government, 
like  the  tops  of  waves,  move  forward  under 
pressure  of  an  idea  at  rates  much  in  advance 
of  the  common  opinion.  The  breaking  of  that 
surge  toward  forest  preservation  was  in  a  line 
about  the  chief  of  the  watersheds  beyond  which 
it  was  not  lawful  for  sheep  or  cattle  to  pass. 
Here  in  my  country  it  cuts  off  squarely  south 
of  Havilah,  runs  straightly  north  to  the  spur  of 
Coso  Hills,  where  the  desert  marches  with  it 
past  Olancha,  trends  with  the  Sierras  north  by 
west  past  Lone  Pine,  past  Tinnemaha,  past 
Round  Valley  and  Little  Round  Valley,  and 
turns  directly  west  to  meet  the  Yosemite  Park. 
Returning  on  the  other  slope,  it  encompasses 
the  Northfork  country,  the  country  of  Kaweah, 
the  sugar-pine  country,  and  the  place  of  the 
sequoias,  Tule  River,  Kings  and  Kern,  all  the 


THE    SHEEP   AND    THE    RESERVES     197 

noble  peaks  that  rear  about  Mt.  Whitney  and 
the  pleasant  slopes  of  Three  Rivers  and  Four 
Creeks,  in  short  all  that  country  of  which  I 
write  to  you. 

I  said  that  at  first  neither  sheep  nor  cattle 
might  pass  it,  but  very  shortly  it  was  granted 
that  cowmen  living  near  the  reserve  should, 
by  special  perniit,  feed  their  stock  on  certain 
of  the  most  generous  meadows  at  the  set  time 
of  the  year.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that 
the  sheepmen  conceived  this  a  blow  directed 
at  the  wool  and  mutton  industry,  and  finding 
the  price  of  stock  sheep  forced  down  by  these 
measures,  excused  their  trespasses  by  their 
necessities.  Some  there  were  who  slipped  in 
by  night  and  slipped  out,  ashamed  and  saying 
nothing,  others  who  infringed  boldly  and  came 
out  boasting,  as  elated,  as  self-gratulatory  as  if 
they  had  merged  railroads  or  performed  any 
of  those  larger  thieveries  that  constitute  a  Cap- 
tain of  Industry. 

There  was  a  Basque,  feeding  up  and  down 
the  Long  Trail,  who  was  notably  among  the 
offenders.  A  trick  of  his  which  served  on  more 
than  one  occasion  was  to  start  a  small  band 


198  THE   FLOCK 

moving,  for  he  had  fifteen  thousand  head,  and 
having  attracted  the  ranger's  attention  by 
boasts  and  threats  made  with  the  appearance 
of  secrecy,  in  places  most  likely  to  reach  the 
ranger's  ear,  to  draw  him  on  to  following  the 
decoy  by  suspicious  behavior.  Then  the  Basco 
would  bring  up  the  remainder  of  the  flocks 
and  whip  into  the  Reserve  behind  the  ranger's 
back.  Once  a  day's  journey  deep  in  the  Sierra 
fastnessess,  it  would  be  nearly  impossible  to 
come  up  with  him  until,  perhaps,  he  neared 
the  line  on  his  fall  returning.  The  sheepmen 
had  always  the  advantage  in  superior  know- 
ledge of  the  country,  of  meadows  defended  by 
secret  trails  and  false  monuments,  of  feeding 
grounds  inaccessible  to  mounted  men,  remote 
and  undiscovered  by  any  but  the  sheep.  They 
risked  much  to  achieve  a  summer's  feeding  in 
these  fair,  inviolate  pastures.  The  most  the 
rangers  could  do  against  them  was  to  scatter 
and  harry  the  flock  so  as  to  make  the  gather- 
ing up  difficult  and  expensive.  The  business 
was  also  hindered  by  the  inadequacy  of  the  ran- 
ger force.  Every  man  had  more  territory  than 
he  could  well  ride  over,  and  rode  it  fast  at  the 


THE    SHEEP   AND   THE    RESERVES     199 

end  of  a  red  tape  centred  in  Washington,  D.  C. 
The  service  did  not  know  very  well  what  it 
wanted,  and  the  pay  was  much  below  the  price 
of  the  fittest  men.  Whatever  the  ranger  did 
was  at  the  mercy  of  the  man  at  the  other  end 
of  his  tape,  who  like  enough  had  never  seen 
a  forest  off  the  map.  Whatever  went  on,  the 
ranger  reported  in  a  detailed  account  of  each 
day's  proceedings.  After  which  he  explained 
the  report.  If  the  Tape  Spinner  wrote  back  to 
know  why  on  a  given  day  he  had  but  covered 
the  distance  between  two  places  no  more  than 
five  miles  apart  on  the  map,  and  the  next  day 
had  ridden  fifteen,  no  matter  what  was  doing 


200  THE   FLOCK 

in  the  way  of  trespass  or  forest  fires,  the  ranger 
paused  politely  to  explain  that  the  first  day's 
riding  was  pretty  nearly  straight  up  in  the  air, 
over  broken  ground,  and  the  second  through 
a  pleasant  valley.  Still,  if  the  explanation  failed 
to  satisfy,  the  forester's  pay  was  docked. 

On  one  occasion  a  ranger  saw  against  the 
morning  sky  the  pale  saltire  of  forbidden  fires 
at  a  time  of  the  year  when  forest  fires  were 
most  to  be  abhorred.  Two  days'  hard  riding 
discovered  the  fire  to  be  in  a  small  granite 
fenced  basin,  nearly  burnt  out  with  its  own 
fury.  He  so  reported  and  had  his  pay  cut  for 
the  whole  time  of  his  fruitless  errand.  But 
suppose  the  fire  had  not  been  in  an  isolated 
basin,  and  suppose  he  had  not  gone  to  see? 
Another  ranger  requiring  powder  for  blasting 
a  landslip  from  a  ruined  and  impassable  trail, 
went  to  the  nearest  town,  which  happened  to 
be  a  day's  ride  from  the  reserve.  Timidly  he 
submitted  the  bill  for  the  powder  and  it  was 
allowed,  but  the  man  was  cut  two  days'  pay  for 
being  out  of  the  Reserve  without  leave.  I  could 
tell  you  more  of  these  absurdities,  but  I  am 
ashamed  of  them ;  besides,  the  sense  of  the  ser- 


THE    SHEEP   AND    THE    RESERVES     201 

vice  is  always  toward  greater  efficiency;  more- 
over the  sane,  inspiring  work  of  forest  pre- 
servation sweeps  to  its  larger  purpose  not  too 
much  hindered  by  the  fret  of  departmental 
inadequacies.  But  when  these  things  are  so, 
you  can  understand  that  the  herders  could  the 
more  easily  take  the  advantage. 

I  shall  not  here  recount  the  whole  of  that 
struggle  between  the  rangers  and  the  sheep, 
the  experimental  kindnesses,  the  vexed  repris- 
als, the  failures,  triumphs,  and  foolish  heroisms. 
It  is  true  that  not  all  the  keepers  of  sheep 
forged  over  the  viewless  line  of  the  Reserve 
unless  it  might  be  by  inadvertence,  for  in  the 
beginning  it  was  not  very  clearly  determined. 
Respectable  sheep-owners  sat  at  home  and 
ordered  their  herders  to  bring  fat  mutton  and 
full  fleeces  back  from  the  curtailed  pastures. 
These  simple-hearted  little  men  came  near  to 
achieving  the  impossible.  Those  who  would 
have  done  nothing  on  their  own  behalf  stole 
stoutly  in  the  interest  of  their  owners.  One 
caught  at  it  would  have  shot  the  ranger,  only 
the  ranger  shot  first.  And  if  their  very  dogs 
were  not  in  league  with  them,  how  is  it  that 


202  THE    FLOCK 

the  flock  of  Filon  Gerard  stampeded  so  for- 
tunately as  they  were  crossing,  under  escort 
of  the  rangers,  at  Walker's  Pass.  True,  Filon 
had  been  kept  hanging  about  the  Pass  on  the 
barren  mesa  for  several  days,  waiting  for  the 
arrival  of  the  escort,  and  the  narrow  strip  of 
crossing  allowed  was  already  eaten  off  to  the 
grass-roots  by  earlier  passing.  No  doubt  the 
sheep  then  were  crazed  by  hunger,  as  Filon 
avowed.  It  seems  certain  that  some  sis^ns 
passed  between  him  and  the  dogs  at  the  mo- 
ment of  stampeding ;  and  by  the  time  the 
ranger  had  helped  to  gather  them  up  they  had 
all  a  fill  of  the  fresh,  sweet  grass. 

When  Jean  Rieske  camped  where  he  had 
been  wont  to  rest  on  his  passage  up  from  Mo- 
jave,  over-tired,  with  a  footsore,  hungry  flock, — 
for  he  had  attempted  the  passage  too  early,  be- 
fore the  desert  feed  was  well  advanced,  —  when 
he  had  no  more  than  lighted  his  fire  to  warm 
his  broth,  it  being  then  long  past  dark,  down 
came  the  rangers  upon  him  with  orders  to  move. 
For  what  ?  A  new  regulation  ;  that  was  all 
they  knew.  Three  days  ago  it  had  been  lawful 
to  camp  in   this   })lace,  now  it  was   not.    Jean 


THE    SHEEP   AND    THE    RESERVES     203 

Rieske  moved  on.  There  were  some  miles  to 
cover  to  another  camp,  the  season  was  early, 
and  the  lambs  were  young;  in  the  darkness, 
fatigue,  and  confusion  they  became  separated 
from  the  ewes.  The  rangers  were  also  tired, 
cold,  and  hungry,  and  harried  unnecessarily  the 
flock.  Nights  on  these  high  mesas  the  keen 
still  cold  bites  to  the  bone  —  and  Jean  Rieske 
could  not  carry  all  the  lambs  of  one  flock  in 
his  bosom.  What  indeed  are  half  a  hundred 
lambs  to  the  letter  of  the  law  ? 

There  was  a  ranger  rode  out  of  town  to 
pass  over  the  gap  between  two  bulky,  grey, 
and  wintry  mountain  heads,  in  the  month  of 
frequent  rains  ;  and  a  mile  over  the  line  of  the 
Reserve  came  upon  a  Portuguese  herder  of 
two  thousand  blackfaces,  working  straight  to- 
ward the  lake  basins  of  the  ten  thousand  foot 
level.  He  turned  the  man  back,  saw  the  sheep 
out  of  bounds,  watched  them  dip  away,  the 
herder  still  protesting  the  virtue  of  his  inten- 
tion, into  a  hollow  where  there  was  thick  black 
sage,  and  urged  by  his  errand,  pricked  forward 
on  the  trail.  Even  with  this  delay  he  hoped  to 
make  the  pass  and  the  meadow  of  Bright  Wa- 


204  THE    FLOCK 

ter  by  night,  but  when  he  had  come  to  the  first 
of  the  lingering  drifts  he  found  the  trail  choked 
with  rubble,  and  just  beyond,  obliterated  in  a 
long,  raw  scar  where  the  whole  front  of  the 
hill,  made  sodden  by  recent  rains,  had  sloughed 
away  into  the  cafion  below.  This  sent  him 
back  on  his  tracks  in  time  to  find  the  same 
herder  working  industriously  over  the  same 
ground  from  which  he  had  been  routed  earlier 
in  the  day.  The  ranger  told  me  afterward 
with  great  relish  how  he  pulled  his  gun  —  in 
this  country  when  we  say  gun  we  mean  a  six- 
shooter —  and  drove  the  Portuguese  down  the 
trail  before  him.  I  am  told  there  are  places  on 
that  grade  where  a  man  in  a  hurry  may  cover 
as  much  as  twenty  feet  without  hitting  the 
ground.  The  flock  was  all  of  that  year's  in- 
crease, lately  weaned  and  not  yet  iiock-wise ; 
they  began  to  drop  behind  on  the  steep,  in  the 
pitfalls  of  the  strewn  boulders,  in  the  stiff  wat- 
tles of  the  chaparral.  The  ranger  and  his  man 
came  out  of  the  Reserve  at  a  flying  jump,  where 
the  ranger  breathed  his  horse  and  the  Portu- 
guese lay  on  the  ground,  bellowed  with  anger, 
and  tore  up  handfuls  of  the  scant  grass. 


THE    SHEEP   AND    THE    RESERVES     205 

In  the  midst  of  rage  and  trickery  there  were 
two  who  knew  nothing  of  it,  but  remembered 
only  their  devotion  to  the  f^ock.  At  the  last 
it  was  in  pity  for  the  incredible  great  labors  of 
the  doQ^s  who  covered,  with  tono^ues  out  and 
heaving  sides,  the  broken  steeps  of  the  canon 
so  many  times  in  the  breathless  afternoon,  that 
the  ranger  permitted  the  herder  to  get  upon 
his  feet  and  gather  the  remnant  of  the  fliock.  I 
should  say  that  the  fellow  lost  the  half  of  the 
year's  increase  by  that  venture.  And  no  longer 
ago  than  the  time  when  every  swale  of  the  long 
mesa  overflowed  with  the  blue  of  lupines,  as 
blue  as  sea  water,  the  rangers  found  a  shep- 
herd feeding  on  the  tabooed  ground.  He  said, 
and  the  rangers  believed  him,  that  he  was  not 
aware  of  trespass.  Nevertheless,  as  their  orders 
ran,  they  began  to  drive  the  sheep  outward, 
scattering  as  they  went.  The  little  Frenchman 
wearied  himself  to  keep  them  close,  he  was  fit 
to  burst  with  running,  he  sobbed  with  the  labor- 
ing of  his  sides,  tears  streamed  from  him  ;  and 
when  at  last  he  was  able  to  send  hired  men  to 
gather  up  his  flock,  it  had  cost  him  as  much  as 
a  whole  summer's    feed    in    fenced    pastures. 


206  THE   FLOCK 

"  And  all  the  time,"  said  the  ranger,  "  I  was 
perfectly  sure  that  he  had  crossed  the  line 
without  knowing  it,  as  he  might  easily  have 
done,  for  there  were  no  monuments  at  that 
place."  I  confess  to  a  great  liking  for  these 
lean,  keen,  hard-riding  fellows,  who  have  often 
an  honest  distaste  for  the  orders  they  execute 
with  so  much  directness  and  simplicity,  and 
from  whose  account  it  appears  that  the  law  at 
times  out-does  itself,  and,  thinking  to  prevent 
infringement,  inflicts  a  damage. 

Do  not  suppose  I  shall  enter  a  proof  or  a 
denial  of  all  the  sheep  have  done  to  the  water- 
sheds, what  slopes  denuded,  what  thousand 
years  of  pines  blackened  out  with  willful  fires. 
These  things  have  been  much  advertised  with 
all  the  heartiness  and  particularity  of  those  sure 
of  the  conclusion  before  the  argument  is  in- 
itiated. I  might  add  something  to  the  account, 
instancing  the  total  want  of  young  shrubs  of 
the  bitterbrush,  the  wheno-iiabc  of  the  Paiutes, 
purshia  tridentata  of  the  botanist,  greedily 
sought  by  sheep  and  cattle.  This  extraordin- 
arily bitter-savored  shrub  of  dark  green,  shin- 
ing, small  foliage,  has  a  persistent  bark,  brown 


THE    SHEEP   AND   THE    RESERVES     207 

and  fibrous,  grown  anew  every  year,  half 
sloughed  away  so  that  a  stem  might  display  an 
inch  or  more  of  this  shaggy  covering,  strong  as 
hemp,  which  the  Indians  of  old  time  shredded 
and  wove  into  mats  for  lining  their  caches  and 
storing  pine  nuts  against  need.  No  vermin  at- 
tacked it,  nor  rot  nor  dampness.  Two  of  these 
mats  I  have,  taken  from  a  cache  in  the  Coso 
hills,  forgotten  as  long  ago  as  before  the  white 
man  inhabited  there,  which  was  before  the 
Gunsite  mine  was  lost  or  ever  Peg-Leg  Smith 
had  made  his  unfortunate  "  passear ;  "  and  the 
fibre  is  yet  incredibly  fresh  and  strong.  But 
when  the  Indians  discovered  cloth  and 
canned  goods  so  much  more  to  their  taste,  then 
the  demand  for  the  wheno-nabe  fell  off  and  the 
strip  of  country  where  it  grew  became  part  of 
the  Long  Trail.  Normally  the  plant  should 
have  increased  in  those  years,  but  when  after 
an  interval  it  was  thought  possible  to  reinstate 
the  ancient  craft,  the  sheep  and  cattle  had  left 
us  no  plants  of  the  bitterbrush  in  that  neigh- 
borhood but  such  as  appeared  as  old  as  the 
Indians  who  remembered  the  knack  of  its  use. 
Also  I  could  say  something  of  the  hills  be- 


2o8  THE   FLOCK 

hind  Delano  that  once  were  billowy  and  smooth 
as  the  backs  of  the  ocean  swell,  and  after  so 
many  years  of  close-herded  sheep  trampling  in 
to  the  annual  shearing  are  beaten  to  an  imper- 
vious surface  that  sheds  the  rain  to  run  in  hol- 
lows and  seam  them  with  great  raw  gullies  so 
that  the  land  shows  when  the  pitiless  high  light 
of  noon  searches  it,  like  the  face  of  an  old 
courtesan  furrowed  with  the  advertisement  of 
a  too  public  use. 

You  will  find  the  proof  of  things  like  that  in 
the  government  reports,  together  with  many 
excellent  photographs  of  before  and  after,  to 
convince  you  of  the  plague  of  sheep.  For  you 
notice,  curiously,  all  this  anathema  is  directed 
against  sheep,  whereas  we  who  have  followed 
after  the  bells  know  that  it  is  to  be  laid  to  the 
sheepman,  and  to  a  sort  of  sheepman  fast  dis- 
appearing from  the  open  range.  What  I  mean 
to  say,  while  admitting  the  damage,  is  that 
there  is  nothing,  practically  nothing,  in  the  na- 
ture of  sheep  inimical  to  the  young  forests  or 
the  water  cover.  Is  it  not  the  custom  other- 
where to  put  sheep  on  worn-out  lands  to  renew 


THE   SHEEP   AND   THE    RESERVES     209 

them?  Have  not  flocks  been  turned  to  the  vine- 
yards to  lighten  the  pruning  ?  Does  any  farmer 
complain  who  has  hired  his  alfalfa  fields  to  the 
herders,  or  manure  them  other  than  with  the 
droppings  of  the  sheep?  Do  sheep  eat  young 
pines  except  of  starvation,  or  crop  the  grasses 
into  the  root-stock,  or  trample  the  earth  into 
a  fine  dust,  or  break  down  the  creek  banks  in 
passage  except  the  herder  imposes  such  a  ne- 
cessity? Do  sheep  light  forest  fires  or  turn 
streams  from  their  courses? 

But  suppose  you  have  man  laying  his  will 
heavily  on  the  flock,  a  man  say  who  has  a  wife 
or  a  sweetheart  in  France  and  looks  in  six  or 
seven  years  to  sell  out  and  go  back  to  her, 
knowing  nothing  of  the  ultimate  disaster,  car- 
ing nothing  for  those  who  come  after  him. 
Such  an  one  with  sheep  under  his  hand  can 
use  them  to  incalculable  damage.  It  needed 
some  illuminating  talks  with  a  man  who  had 
run  his  stock  on  the  fenced  pastures  of  Men- 
docino to  get  this  matter  fairly  into  shape. 
Shepherds  who  feed  on  their  own  ground  blame 
only  themselves  if  their  pastures  deteriorate, 
and  they  chiefly  suffer  for  it.    Seeing  how  all 


2IO  THE    FLOCK 

creatures  so  use  the  face  of  the  earth  to  better 
it,  it  is  ridiculous  to  suppose  that  sheep  left 
reasonably  free  from  man-habits  and  not 
encourao^ed  to  increase  in  excess  of  the  feed 
produced,  should  incontinently  work  us  harm. 
They  clean  up  the  dry  grass  and  litter  by 
which  the  smouldering  fire  creeps  from  pine 
to  pine ;  ranging  moderately  on  the  hillslopes 
they  prune  the  chaparral  which  by  smothering 
growth  and  natural  decay  covers  great  areas 
with  heaps  of  rubbish  through  which  the  shrub 
stems  barely  lift  their  leaf  crowns  to  the  light 
and  air.  Frequently  in  such  districts  after  a 
fire,  trees  will  spring  up  where  no  trees  were 
because  of  the  suffocating  growth. 

There  is  always  a  point  beyond  which  it  is 
not  well  to  push  any  native  industry  to  the 
wall.  Consider  what  the  price  of  wool  and 
mutton  must  orrow  to  be  when  these  are  raised 

o 

on  irrigated  lands.  But  what  if  it  were  granted 
to  sheepmen  as  to  cattlemen  for  a  small  rental 
to  graze  on  the  withdrawn  pastures  under  proper 
circumstances  of  supervision  ?  As  to  this  mat- 
ter there  is  much  that  wants  learning.  What 
the  forester  must  know  is  the  precise  time  be- 


THE    SHEEP   AND   THE    RESERVES     211 

tween  the  two  nodes  of  the  year  when  grazing 
is  accomplished  without  liarm  to  the  water 
cover.  As  to  the  first,  when  the  annual  grasses 
begin  to  stool  in  the  spring,  before  their  roots 
are  established,  when  they  perish  from  a  single 
cropping ;  as  to  the  last,  the  hour  beyond  which, 
if  cut  off  in  mid-stem,  they  ripen  no  seeds.  He 
is  to  choose  also  the  times  of  moving  from 
meadows  across  the  forested  lands.  Fortun- 
ately the  wild  pastures  are  still  deep  under 
stained,  sludgy  snows  when  there  is  over  all 
the  leaves  of  the  pine,  the  burnished  bloom, 
the  evidence  of  the  rising  sap,  at  what  time 
a  break  or  a  scar  retards  the  season  s  growth. 
But  a  little  later  than  the  time  when  rains  be- 
gin, the  forces  of  life  and  death  are  so  evenly 
balanced  that  the  rake  of  the  sharp  hoofs 
downward,  still  more  the  impact  of  the  heavy 
tread  of  the  steers,  jars  out  the  little  dryad  of 
the  sapling  tree.  It  sticks  in  my  mind  that  there 
is  not  enough  attention  paid  to  the  moving  of 
cattle  through  the  pine  woods  in  the  climac- 
teric of  the  year. 

It  is  an  instance  of  how  the  right  conduct 
of  any  business  forces  itself  on  those  who  con- 


212  THE   FLOCK 

cern  themselves  about  it  with  an  open  mind, 
that  no  longer  ago  than  the  time  when  this 
book  began  to  shape  in  my  mind,  there  was  no 
forester  but  regarded  the  sheep  with  abomina- 
tion, and  now  none,  in  my  district  at  least, 
otherwise  than  generously  inclined  toward  the 
properly  conducted  flock.  Though  it  is  not 
often  and  so  completely  that  one  is  justified  in 
the  comfortable  attitude  of  having  known  it 
all  the  time. 


XII 


i 

1 

RANCHOS    TEJON  — SOME   ac- 

i"^ 

'^^^^ 

count     OF     A\     OLD     CALIFORNIA 

i   4 

1 

SHEEP    RANCH    AND    OF    DON    JOSK 
JESUS    AND    THE    LONG    DRIVE.            '' 

CHAPTER    XII 


RANCHOS    TEION 


This  year  at  Button  Willow  they  sheared  the 
flocks  by  machinery,  which  is  to  say  that  the 
most  likable  features  of  the  old  California 
sheep  ranches  are  departing.  That  is  why  I 
am  at  the  pains  of  setting  down  here  a  little  of 
what  went  on  at  the  Ranchos  Tejon  before  the 
clang  of  machinery  overlays  its  leisurely  pic- 
turesqueness. 

When  Mexico  held  the  state  among  her  de- 
pendencies she  gave  away  the  core  of  it  to  the 
most  importunate  askers.    A  good  lump  of  the 


2i6  THE    FLOCK 

heart  land  went  in  the  grants  of  La  Liebre, 
Castac,  and  Los  Alamos  y  Agua  Caliente,  to 
which  Edward  Fitzgerald  Beale added  in '62  the 
territory  of  th-e  badger,  called  El  Tejon.  This 
principality  is  three  hundred  thousand  acres 
of  noble  rolling  land,  lifting  to  mountain  sum- 
mits and  falling  off  toward  the  San  Joaquin 
where  that  valley  heads  up  in  the  meeting  of 
the  Sierra  and  Coast  Ranges.  The  several 
grants  known  as  Ranchos  Tejon  dovetail  to- 
gether in  the  high,  wooded  region  where  the 
Sierra  Nevadas  break  down  in  the  long,  shal- 
low passage  of  Cafiada  de  las  Uvas. 

Besfinninof  as  far  south  as  the  old  Los  An- 
geles  stage-road,  which  enters  the  grant  at 
Cow  Springs,  the  boundary  of  it  passes  thence 
to  Tehachapi  ;  northward  the  leopard-colored 
flank  of  Antelope  Valley  heaves  up  to  meet  it. 
Here  begins  the  Tejon  proper,  crossing  the 
railroad  a  little  beyond  Caliente,  encompassing 
Pampa  on  the  northwest;  from  hence  trending 
south,  stalked  by  blue  mirages  of  the  San 
Joaquin,  it  divides  a  fruitful  strip  called  since 
Indian  occupancy  the  Weed  Patch,  and  coasts 
the  leisurely  sweep  of  the  Sierras  toward  Pas- 


RANCHOS    TEJOX  217 

toria.  This  o-utterino-  rift  lets  throu<rh  the 
desert  winds  that  at  the  l^eLrinninor  of  Rains  fill 
the  cove  with  roaring  yellow  murk.  About 
the  line  of  the  fence,  bones  of  the  flock  over- 
blown in  the  wind  of  '74  still  stick  out  of  the 
sand.  Hereabout  are  the  cleared  patches  of 
the  homesteaders,  where  below  the  summer 
limit  of  waters  the  settlers  play  out  with  the 
cattlemen  and  the  sheep  the  yearly  game  of 
Who  Gets  the  Feed.  Thence  the  boundary 
runs  west  to  Tecuya  ;  here  the  oaks  leave  off 
and  the  round-bellied  hills  of  San  Emigdio 
turn  brownly  to  the  sun.  Castac,  which  is  to 
say  The  Place  of  Seeping  Springs,  basks 
obscurely  in  the  shallow  intricacies  of  cafion 
behind  Fort  Tejon,  finding  the  border  of  La 
Liebre  a  little  beyond  the  brackish  lake,  wholly 
to  include  the  ranch  of  the  cottonwoods  and 
warm  water,  otherwise  Los  Alamos  y  Agua 
Caliente.  Beginning  at  Pampa,  a  fence  rider 
should  compass  the  whole  estate  in  a  week 
and  a  day. 

For  those  so  dry-as-dust  as  to  require  it 
there  is  an  immense  amount  of  stamped  paper 
to    certify    the    time    and    manner    of   Beale's 


2i8  THE    FLOCK 

purchases,  but  I  concern  myself  chiefly  with 
the  moment  when  he  married  the  land  in  his 
heart,  coming  first  out  of  the  dark,  tortuous 
caiion  of  Tejon,  not  the  fort  caiion,  but  that 
one  which  opens  toward  the  ranch  house,  and 
looked  first  on  the  slope  and  swale  of  the  bask- 
ing valley.  If  it  is  yet  called  the  loveliest  land, 
judge  how  it  looked  to  him  after  the  thirsts, 
the  vexations,  the  epic  fatigues  of  his  explora- 
tion of  the  thirty-fifth  parallel.  Back  of  that 
lay  San  Pascual,  the  figure  of  himself  as  a 
swarthy  young  lieutenant  carrying  to  Wall 
Street  the  news  and  the  proof  of  the  first 
discovery  of  gold  ;  and  through  a  coil  of  high 
undertaking  as  a  bearer  of  dispatches  looping 
back  to  the  day  when  President  Jackson  saw 
him  fight  out  some  boyish  squabble  in  the 
streets  of  the  Capital  and  appointed  him  to 
the  Navy. 

"  The  boy  is  a  born  fighter,"  said  Old  Hick- 
ory, *'  let  him  fight  for  his  country."  He  was 
not  the  less  pleased  when  he  learned  that  the 
lad  was  a  grandson  of  Commodore  Truxton 
whom  the  President  had  admired  to  the  extent 
of  naminir  ^  race-horse  after  him. 


RANCHOS    TKJON  219 

It  was  all  a  piece  of  the  simplicity  of  the 
time  that  grandmother  Truxton,  when  she 
heard  of  the  appointment,  cut  the  buttons  off 
the  dead  Commodore's  coat  to  sew  on  the 
midshipman's  jacket,  so  that  the  boy  arrived 
at  the  frigate  Independence  wearing  that  in- 
signia, whereat  the  other  middies  laughed. 
Something  less  than  a  score  of  years  stretched 
between  the  time  when  the  boy  of  twelve  lay 
miserably  in  his  berth  contriving  how  to  get 
rid  of  the  Commodore's  buttons  and  the  time 
when  he  rode  with  Fremont  into  the  full- 
blossomed  Tejon ;  but  if  you  said  no  more  of 
them  than  that  they  had  sharpened  and  shaped 
the  man  for  knowing  exactly  what  he  wanted 
and  being  able  to  get  it,  you  would  have  im- 
plied a  considerable  range  of  experience. 

Knowing  about  San  Pascual,  you  conceive 
that  the  man  must  have  had  extraordinarily 
the  faculty  of  dealing  with  primitive  peoples. 
I  suppose  that  Beale  was  the  first  official  to 
discover,  or  to  give  evidence  of  it,  that  it  is 
wiser  for  Indians  to  become  the  best  sort  of 
Indians  rather  than  poor  imitation  whites. 
That  part  of  the  estate  known  as  Rancho  el 


220  THE    FLOCK 

Tejon  had  been  an  Indian  Reservation,  gather- 
ing in  broken  tribes  from  Inyo,  from  Kern 
and  Tule  rivers  and  Whiskey  Flat,  prospering 
indifferently  as  Indians  do  in  the  neighborhood 
of  an  idle  garrison  such  as  Fort  Tejon.  Beale, 
being  made  Superintendent  of  Indian  Affairs, 
began  to  prove  the  land  and  draw  to  him  in 
devotion  its  swarthy  people,  and  the  Reserva- 
tion being  finally  removed  to  Tule  River,  there 
passed  to  him  with  the  purchase  of  El  Tejon, 
the  wardship  of  some  dozens  of  Indian  families. 
Such  of  them  as  longed  homesickly  for  their 
own  lands  melted  from  Tejon  like  quail  in 
nesting  time,  by  unguessed  trails,  to  the  places 
from  which  they  had  been  drawn,  and  to  those 
remaining^  were  accorded  certain  riorhts  of 
home-building,  of  commons  and  wage-work- 
ing, rights  never  abated  nor  forsworn  during 
the  lifetime  of  Edward  Beale. 

There  were  notable  figures  of  men  among 
these  Tejon  Indians ;  one  Sebastian  whom  I 
have  seen.  Born  a  Serrano  in  the  valley  of 
San  Gabriel,  he  was  carried  captive  by  the 
Mojaves,  one  spark  of  a  man  child  saved  alive 
when   the   hearth    fires   were   stamped  out  in 


RAXCHOS    TEJON  221 

war.  He  being  an  infant,  his  mother  hid  him 
in  her  bosom ;  with  her  long  hair  she  covered 
him ;  between  her  breasts  and  her  knees  she 
suckled  him  in  quietness  until  the  lust  of  kill- 
ing was  past.  Among  the  captive  women  lie 
grew  up,  and  escaping  came  to  know  the  coun- 
try about  Kern  River  as  his  home.  Here  when 
Fremont  came  by,  exploring,  the  river  was  at 
flood,  a  terrible,  swift,  tawny,  frothing  river, 
and  no  ford.  However,  there  was  Sebastian. 
This  son  of  a  chief's  son  stripped  himself, 
bound  his  clothing  on  his  head,  swam  the 
river,  brought  friendly  Indians,  made  fast  a 
rope  across,  brought  the  tule  boats  called 
"  balsas,"  ferried  over  the  explorers,  and  got 
from  Fremont  for  his  pains  —  nothing;  a  rank- 
lino-  slio^ht  until  the  old  man  died.  But  be- 
tween  Sebastian  and  Beale  grew  up  such 
esteem  from  man  to  man  as  lasted  their  lives 
out  in  benefits  and  devotion. 

One  finds  tales  like  this  at  every  point  of 
contact  with  the  Tejon,  raying  out  fanwise  like 
thin,  white  runways  of  rabbits  from  any  water- 
hole  in  a  rainless  land.  The  present  master  of 
the  estate  has  told  me,  himself  all  unaware,  and 


222  THE    FLOCK 

I  secretly  delighted  to  see  the  land  rise  up  and 
grip  him  through  the  velvet  suavity  of  years, 
how  when  he  was  a  boy  and  the  court  between 
the  low  adobes  closed  at  night  as  a  stockade, 
red  eyes  of  the  Indian  campfires  winked  open 
around  the  swale  where  the  ranch  house  sat, 
and  at  the  end  of  the  first  day's  drive  toward 
Los  Angeles,  as  they  would  ride  at  twilight 
over  the  Tejon  grade,  the  circling  fires  blos- 
somed out  from  the  soft  gloom,  watching  on 
their  trail.  More  he  told  of  how  he  went  up 
the  canon,  full  of  little  dark  bays  of  shadow, 
with  his  father  to  bury  old  Nations,  of  how  the 
dead  mountaineer  looked  to  him  through  the 
chinks  of  the  cabin,  large  in  death,  and  how 
being  no  nearer  than  sixty  miles  to  a  Bible, 
the  General  —  he  was  Surveyor-General  at  one 
time  —  contrived  a  ceremony  of  what  he  could 
remember  of  the  burial  service,  and  the  Navy 
Chaplain's  prayers,  and  the  tall,  hard-riding 
Texans  and  Tennesseeans,  clanking  in  their 
spurs,  came  down  to  be  pall-bearers,  lean  as 
wolves  drawn  from  hollows  of  the  mountains 
as  lonely  as  their  lairs. 

I  should  have  said  that,  inside  of  the  ranch 


RANCHOS    TEJON  223 

boundaries,  there  were  sections  and  corners  of 
government  land,  these  drawing  to  them,  by 
election,  westward-roving  clans  of  southern 
mountaineers.  Here  they  brought  the  habits 
of  freedom,  their  feuds,  yes,  and  the  seeds  of 
the  potentialities  that  make  leaders  of  men. 
Here  grew  up  Eleanor  and  Virginia  Calhoun, 
nourished  in  dramatic  possibilities  on  the 
drama  of  life.  I  remember  well  how  Virginia, 
during  the  rehearsals  of  Ramona,  when  we 
milled  over  between  us  the  possibilities  of  what 
an  Indian  would  or  would  not  do,  broke  off 
suddenly  to  say  how  clearly  the  peaks  of  Tejon 
would  swim  above  the  middle  haze  of  noon,  or 
how  she  had  waked  mornings  to  find  the  deer 
had  ravaged  the  garden,  or  a  bear  in  her  play- 
house under  the  oaks. 

But  the  real  repository  of  the  traditions  of 
Tejon  is  Jimmy  Rosemeyre, —  and  in  the  West 
when  a  whole  community  unites  to  call  a  man 
by  his  first  name,  it  is  because  they  love  and 
respect  him  very  much.  Jimmy,  who  crossed  the 
plains  in  '54,  and  was  drawn  down  from  Sacra- 
mento by  natural  selection  to  Tejon;  Jimmy, 
who,  ^Decause    of    his    comeliness    among   so 


224  THE    FLOCK 

many  dusky  folk,  was  called  Jimmy  '' iverito'' 
Jimmy  the  Ruddy;  who,  when  he  had  a  good 
horse  under  him,  a  saddle  of  carved  leather- 
work,  dofas,  deep-roweled  spurs  and  a  silver- 
trimmed  sombrero,  knew  himself  a  handsome 
figure  of  a  man;  James  Vineyard  Rosemeyre, 
who  saveys  the  tempers  and  dispositions  of 
men,  who  knows  the  Tejon  better  than  its  own 
master,  the  man  whose  hand  should  have  been 
at  the  writing  of  this  book. 

It  is  well  here  to  set  forth  the  shape  of  the 
land,  to  know  how  it  colors  the  life  that  is  lived 
in  it.  Between  the  point  of  San  Emigdio  and 
the  Weed  Patch  there  is  a  moon-shap6d  cove, 
out  of  which  opens,  westerly,  the  root  of  the 
caiion  by  which  Fremont  and  Kit  Carson  came 
through.  The  ranch  house  sits  by  the  water 
that  comes  down  guardedly  between  tents  and 
tents  of  wild  vines.  Below  the  house  by  the 
stream-side  the  Indian  washerwomen  paddle 
leisurely  at  the  clothes  and  spread  them  bleach- 
ing in  the  sun.  Silvering  olives  and  mists  of 
bare  fig  branches  slope  down  to  the  blossomy 
swale ;  deep  in  the  court  between  the  long- 
adobes,  summer  abides,  and  yearly  about  the 


RANCHOS    TKJOX  225 

fence  of  the  garden  the  pomegranates  flame. 
The  beginning  of  all  these,  and  the  oranges, 
Jimmy  Rosemeyre  brought  up  from  the  Mis- 
sion San  Fernando,  going  down  with  two  live 
deer  in  a  waoon  and 
returning  with  cut- 
tings and  rooted 
trees.  Six  miles  up 
the  canon  are  the 
adobe  huts  and  the 
ramadas,  the  bits  of 
fenced  garden  that 
make  the  Indian 
rancheria.  Rising  out  of  laps  and  bays  of  the 
oak-furred  ridges,  pale  smoke  betrays  the 
hearths  of  the  mountaineers. 

Below  the  ranch  house  in  a  wet  spring  the 
land  flings  up  miles  of  white  gilias  and  forget- 
me-nots,  such  as  the  Spanish  children  call 
nicvitas,  little  snow  ;  spreads  on  the  flowing 
hill  bosses  the  field  of  the  cloth  of  the  dormi- 
dera,  collects  in  the  hollows  pools  of  purple 
wild  hyacinth,  deep  enough  to  lie  down  in 
and  feel  the  young  wind  w^alk  above  you  on 
the    blossom    tops.     Days   of   opening  spring 


226  thp:  flock 

the  cove  is  so  full  of  luminosit}^  that  the 
backs  of  crows  flying  over  take  on  a  silver 
sheen.  You  sit  in  the  patio  when  the  banksia 
rose  sprays  out  like  a  fountain,  and  hear  the 
olives  drip  in  the  orchard ;  awhile  you  hear 
the  stream  sing  and  then  ripe  drojDpings  from 
the  young  full-fruited  trees.  At  night  the  hills 
are  silent  and  aware,  and  all  the  dreams  are 


Straight  out  from  the  ranch  house  runs  the 
road  to  Castac  and  La  Liebre.  It  turns  in  past 
the  house  of  Jose  Jesus  Lopez,  and  runs  toward 
Las  Chimeneas.  Here,  to  the  left,  is  the  camel 
camp.  Nobody  much  but  Jimmy  Rosemeyre 
and  the  Bureau  of  Animal  Industry  knows 
about  the  camels  that  the  government,  by  the 
hand  of  Lieutenant  Beale,  undertook  to  domes- 
ticate on  the  desert  border.  Twenty-nine  of 
them,  with  two  Greeks  and  a  Turk,  came  up 
by  way  of  The  Needles,  across  the  corner  of 
Mojave  to  Tejon.  There  I  could  never  learn 
that  they  accomplished  more  than  frightening 
the  horses  and  furnishing  the  entertainment 
of  j'aces.     They   throve,  —  but    no   American 


RANCH  OS    TEJON  227 

can  really  love  a  camel.  Whether  they  admit 
it  or  not,  the  Bureau  of  Animal  Industry  is 
balked  by  these  things.  Nothing  remained  of 
them  at  Tejon  but  tradition  and  a  bell  with 
the  Arabic  inscription  nearly  worn  out  of  it 
by  usage,  cracked  and  thin,  which  Jimmy 
Rosemeyre,  in  a  burst  of  generosity,  which  I 
hope  he  has  never  regretted, gave  to  me.  Hang- 
ing above  my  desk,  swinging,  it  sets  in  motion 
all  the  echoes  of  Romance. 

The  road  runs  whitely  by  Rose's  Station. 
Los  Angeles  stages  used  to  stop  there,  but  I 
like  best  to  remember  it  as  the  place  where 
Jimmy  Rosemeyre  had  a  circus  once,  in  the 
time  when  circuses  traveled  overland  by  the 
stage-roads  from  camp  to  roaring  camp.  Never 
was    a   more    unpromising  quarter   than    this 


j^^/  •  T iS- .    T '^'V^i'-     ^ ^\  5S 

hi\  J)  JMj^ 


228  THE   FLOCK 

tawny  hollow  with  one  great  house  bulking 
darkly  through  the  haze.  But  Jimmy  wanted 
to  see  that  circus. 

"  You  go  ahead  with  the  show,"  said  he, 
"  I  '11  get  the  crowd  ;  "  and  he  sent  out  riders. 
No  lean  coyote  went  swiftlier  to  a  killing  than 
word  of  the  circus  went  about  the  secret  places 
of  the  hills.  The  crowd  came  in  from  Teha- 
chapi,  from  Tecuya  and  San  Emigdio  and  the 
Indian  rancherias ;  handsome  vaqueros  with 
a  wife  or  a  sweetheart  before  them  in  the  saddle, 
—  and  that  was  the  time  of  hoopskirts  too,  — 
Mexican  families  with  a  dozen  or  fifteen  mu- 
chachos  and  muchachitas  in  lumbering  ox 
carts,  squaws  riding  astride  with  two  papooses 
in  front  and  three  behind.  They  brought  food 
and  camped  by  the  waterside,  sat  out  the  after- 
noon performance,  and  after  feasting  returned 
with  unabated  zest  at  night.  But  in  the  year  I 
spent  at  Rose's  Station  I  found  nothing  better 
worth  watching  than  the  antelope  that  signaled 
in  flashes  of  their  white  rumps  how  they  fared 
as  they  ran  heads  up  in  the  golden  amethyst 
light  of  afternoon. 

The  road  climbs  up  the  grade  from  the  foot 


RANG  1 1  OS    Tl':jON  229 

of  which  trends  away  the  ineffaceable  dark  line 
of  the  old  military  road,  visible  only  from  the 
heights  as  the  trail  of  forgotten  armies  from 
the  summits  of  history.  It  leads  to  the  ruins 
of  Fort  Tejon,  built  under  the  sprawly  old  oaks 
where  the  canon  widens,  costing  a  million  dol- 
lars and  accomplishing  less  for  the  pacification 
of  the  Indians  than  one  Padre,  says  Jimm}' 
Rosemeyre.  Across  the  brook  from  the  road, 
across  the  meadow  of  yerJDa  mansa,  across  the 
old  parade-ground,  at  the  lower  corner  of  the 
quadrangle  of  ruined  adobes  is  the  Peter  Lebec 
tree.  Under  it  the  first  white  man  died  in  that 
country  and  under  it  the  first  white  child  was 
born.  General  Beale  himself  showed  me  the 
great  bough  that  was  lopped  away  to  rid  the 
woman  of  fear  of  its  overhanging  weight  when 
she  came  to  her  distressful  hour.  Lebec,  I 
spell  it  now  as  it  was  rudely  carved  in  the  in- 
scription, was  buried  in  1S37,  and  after  more 
than  fifty  years,  by  the  rediscovered  inscription 
printed  in  reverse  on  the  bark  grown  over  the 
blaze,  and  by  exhuming  of  the  body  was  proved 
the  current  Indian  tradition  that  while  he  lay 
under  it,  heavy  with  wine,  and  his  camp-mate 


2  30  THE    FLOCK 

away  hunting,  a  bear  came  down  out  of  the  oak 
and  partly  devoured  him. 

You  get  more  than  enough  tales  of  killings 
and  wickedness  hereabout,  bandit  tales  of  Ma- 
son and  Henry,  and  Vasquez  the  hard  rider. 
I  could  show  you  the  place  by  the  dripping 
spring  where  1  found  the  pierced  skull, — 
pleasanter  to  walk  in  the  white  starred  meadow 
and  hear  tremulous,  soft  thunder  of  wild 
pigeons  in  the  oaks,  to  wind  with  the  road's 
windings  up  the  summit  to  Gorman  and  see 
the  shadows  well  out  of  the  caiions  and  over- 
flow the  land  and  the  lit  planets  flaring  low 
above  the  glade  that  holds  the  ranch  house  of 
La  Liebre.  This  was  the  end  of  the  second  day's 
driving,  when  one  went  from  Tejon  to  San 
Francisco  by  way  of  Los  Angeles  and  the  sea. 
The  present  lord  of  the  Ranchos  Tejon  would 
follow  this  road  w^ith  reminiscences  past  Eliza- 
beth Lake,  through  San  Francisquito  caiion, 
clothed  on  with  stiff  chi'parral,  lit  by  tall  can- 
delabra of  the  Spanish  bayonet,  as  far  as  the 
stark  old  Mission  San  Fernando  with  Don 
Andreas  Pico  bowing  open  the  door  and  an 
Lidian  servitor  in  a  single  garment  behind  each 


RANCHOS    TKJON  231 

chair  of  the  hospitable  board.    Hut  he  could  go 

as  far  as  that  without  getting  away  from  the 

spirit  of  Tejon  which 

in  General  Beale's  life 

much    resembled    the 

best  of  mission  times. 

The  measure  of  regard 

which     he    won    from 

the    Indians  was  paid 

for  in  respect  for  usages 

of  their  own ;    as  you 

shall  hear  and  judge  in 

the  case  of  the  Chiscra. 

A  Chisera  you  must 
know  is  a  witch,  in  this 

instance  a  rainmaker.  In  a  dry  year  the  Gen- 
eral put  the  Indians  to  turning  the  creek  into 
an  irrigating  ditch  to  water  the  barley.  Said 
they :  — 

"  Why  so  much  bending  of  backs  and  break- 
ing of  shovel  handles  'i  There  is  a  woman  at 
Whiskey  Flat  who  will  bring  rain  abundantly 
for  the  price  of  a  fat  steer." 

"  Let  her  be  proven,"  said  the  General,  like 
Elijah  to  the  prophets  of  Baal. 


232  THi:    FLOCK 

The  Chisera  wanted  more  than  a  steer, — 
beads,  caHco,  the  material  for  a  considerable 
feast,  all  of  which  was  furnished  her.  First 
the  Indians  fed  and  then  the  Chisera  danced. 
She  leaped  before  the  gods  of  Rain  as  David 
before  the  Ark  of  the  Lord  when  it  came  up 
from  Kirjath-jearim;  she  stamped  and  shuffled 
and  swung  to  the  roll  of  the  hollow  skins 
and  rattles  of  rams'  horns ;  three  days  she 
danced,  and  the  Indians  sat  about  her  singing 
with  their  eyes  upon  the  ground.  Day  and 
night  they  sustained  her  with  the  whisper  and 
beat  of  their  moaning  voices.  Is  there  in  fact 
a  vibration  in  nature  which  struck  into  rhythm 
precipitates  rain,  as  a  random  chord  on  the 
organ  brings  a  rush  of  tears }  At  any  rate  it 
rained,  and  it  rained,  and  it  Tained!  The  bar- 
ley quickened  in  the  field,  a  thousand  acres  of 
mesa  flung  up  suddenly  a  million  sprouting 
thino-s.  Rain  fell  three  weeks.  The  barlev 
and  the  wheat  lay  over  heavily,  the  cattle  left 
off  feedino-  the  buddins;  mesa  was  too  wet  to 
bloom. 

"  For  another  steer,"  said  the  Chisera,  "  I 
will  make  it  stop." 


RANCH  OS    TKJOX  233 

So  the  toll  of  food,  and  cloth,  and  beads  was 
paid  again,  and  in  three  days  the  sun  broke 
gloriously  on  a  succulent  green  world.  It  is 
a  pity,  I  think,  that  the  Chiscra  is  dead. 

Under  the  General's  patriarchal  hand  there 
was  never  any  real  difficulty  with  the  Indians 
at  Tejon,  though  there  was  an  occasion  once 
at  shearing-time,  when  there  came  out  of  Inyo 
a  Medicine  Man  who  gathered  the  remnant  of 
the  tribe  to  him  at  Whiskey  Flat.  He  was 
credited  with  an  unfailing  meal-sack  and  pro- 
mised healing  to  the  sick,  the  maimed,  and  the 
blind.  No  doubt  the  easily  springing  hope  of 
such  as  this  augurs  to  the  primitive  mind  its 
possibility.  Whispers  of  it  ran  with  the  click 
of  the  shears  in  the  sheds.  Question  grew  into 
conviction  and  conviction  to  a  frenzy.  Useless 
to  argue  that  these  things,  if  true,  would  keep 
and  the  shearing  would  not ;  man  after  man, 
they  dropped  their  shears  with  the  undipped 
merinos,  and  for  this  defection,  a  serious  hin- 
drance when  no  workers  were  to  be  had  for 
sixty  miles,  they  were  never  taken  back  into 
employnient. 


234  THE    FLOCK 

It  was  against  this  background  of  wild 
beauty,  mixed  romance,  and  unaffected  sav- 
agery, that  the  business  of  wool-growing  went 
on  at  Tejon  much  as  I  have  described  it  for 
the  Open  Range,  though  running  a  flock  on 
patented  lands  lacks  the  chance  of  adventure 
that  pertains  to  the  free  pastures.  It  was 
Jimmy  Rosemeyre  who  brought  the  first 
sheep  to  the  territory  of  the  badger,  having 
purchased  as  early  as  '57,  a  band  of  mus- 
tang sheep  driven  up  from  Mexico  by  Pablo 
Vaca  and  Joaquin  Peres,  shaggy  and  unbid- 
able  little  beasts  that  must  be  herded  on  horse- 
back. Afterward  he  sold  them  to  Beale,  and 
when  by  improvement  of  the  breed  they  grew 
tractable,  the  herding  fell  to  the  Indians. 
Threescore  herders  in  the  best  of  times  went 
out  with  the  parted  flocks,  and  at  that  time 
when  the  grass  on  the  untrampled  hills  ripened/- 
its  seeds  uncropped  through  successive  years, 
the  feed  grew  shoulder  high  for  the  sheep. 
The  head  shepherd  moved  them  out  from  the 
shearing  like  pieces  on  a  board ;  mostly  they 
could  make  stationary  camps,  feeding  out  cir- 
clewise  for  weeks  at  a  time. 


RAXCHOS    TKJON  235 

The  sheep  had  no  real  enemies  at  Tejon  but 
drouth  and  the  bears.  Against  the  drouth,  the 
Chisera  being  dead,  there  was  no  remedy.  The 
tale  of  the  flocks  was  very  strictly  kept ;  every 
herder  was  required  to  show  the  skins  of  all 
that  he  killed  or  that  were  slain  by  beasts,  or 
such  as  died  of  themselves,  and  in  the  driest 
year  the  number  reached  twenty-two  thousand 
head.  In  '76,  all  the  earth  being  sick  with 
drouth  prolonged,  the  fifty-eight  thousand 
sheep  were  turned  out  in  December  unshep- 
herded,  the  major-domo  being  at  the  end  of 
contrivances  for  saving  them  alive.  They 
sought  the  high  places  among  the  rocks,  the 
secret  places  of  the  most  high  hills,  and  no 
man  spied  on  their  distresses.  Being  so  trusted, 
the  land  dealt  with  them  not  unkindly,  for 
when  the  first  rains  of,  October  drove  them  to 
the  foothills  there  were  gathered  up,  of  the 
original  flock,  fifty-three  thousand.  But  in 
Sfood  vears  thev  saved  all  the  increase,  and 
made  good  with  equal  killings  the  ravages  of 
beasts. 

There  were  once  great  grizzlies  at  Tejon,  but 
mostly  the  bears  are  of  the  variety  called  black 


236  THE    FLOCK 

by  scientists  because  they  are  dark  brown,  or 
even  reddish  when  the  slant  Hght  shows  them 
feeding  on  the  mast  under  the  oaks  or  gather- 
ins:  manzanita  berries  on  the  borders  of  hano- 
ing  meadows,  wintry  afternoons.  Black  enough 
they  look,  though,  lumbering  up  the  trail  in  the 
night  or  bulkino-  larg-e  as  their  shadows  cross 
the  herder's  dying  fire.  Pete  Miller  is  the  of- 
ficial bear-killer  of  the  Ranchos  Tejon,  though 
his  account  of  the  killings^  are  as  short  as  the 
items  in  a  doomsday  book. 

"  Tell  me  a  bear  story,  Pete,"  say  I,  sitting 
idly  in  the  patio  about  the  time  of  budding- 
vines.    Says  Pete,  — 

"  Up  here  about  three  mile  from  the  house 
there  was  a  deef  old  Indian  saw  a  bear  going 
into  a  hollow  tree  ;  he  heaved  a  chunk  of  fire 
in  after  him  and  shot  him  with  a  six-shooter 
when  he  came  out." 

The  stamp  of  simple  veracity  is  in  Pete's 
open  countenance. 

"  Another  time,"  he  said,  "  tliere  was  a  bunch 
of  bears  up  the  canon  stampeded  the  sheep  so 
they  piled  up  in  a  gulch.  No  'm,  they  won't 
anything  but  a  gulch  stop  sheep  once  they  get 


RANCHOS    FEJON  237 

a-running ;  they  was  about  two  hundred  of 
them  killed.  Mc  and  two  other  fellows  went 
up  the  next  night  —  yes  'm,  bears  they  always 
come  back.  We  got  the  whole  bunch.  They 
was  six."  Pete  sat  on  the  edge  of  a  chair  and 
told  tales  like  that  for  an  hour.  They  all  began 
with  a  bear  getting  after  the  sheep,  and  ended 
with  Pete  getting  the  bear. 

"  How  many  bears  have  you  killed,  Pete  ?  " 
say  I. 

"  I  fergit,  exactly,"  says  Pete,  fumbling  em- 
barrassedly  with  his  hat;  but  current  tradition 
makes  it  near  to  three  hundred. 

Nearly  everybody  at  Tejon  can  tell  a  credit- 
able bear  story;  this  from  Jimmy  Rosemeyre, 
not  to  be  behindhand. 

"  I  went  up  to  Plaza  Blanco  to  see  a  herder," 
said  he  ;  "  I  was  packing  some  venison  on  my 
horse ;  yes,  you  can  put  a  deer  on  a  horse  if 
you  blindfold  him.  The  herder  was  toasting 
some  strips  of  meat  on  a  stick. 

'"What's  that.?'  said  I. 

"  '  Cougar,'  he  says,  '  it 's  better  than  venison.' 

"  Thinks  I,  I  '11  try  it,  so  I  let  my  deer  be  and 
went  to  toasting  pieces  of  cougar  on  the  coals. 


238  THE    FLOCK 

It  was.  Good  and  sweet.  The  herder  was 
sleeping  in  a  tapestre  —  that 's  a  bed  on  a  plat- 
form in  a  tree.  He  said  the  bears  bothered  him 
some.  But  he  was  an  all-right  fellow ;  he  wanted 
me  to  sleep  in  the  tapestre  and  let  him  sleep 
on  the  ground.  Along  in  the  night  we  heard 
the  sheep  running.  It  was  dark  as  dark,  a  thick 
dust  in  the  corral,  and  big  lumps  of  blackness 
chasing  around  among  the  sheep.  We  could  n't 
see  to  shoot,  but  there  were  oak  poles  smoulder- 
ing in  the  fire.  We  whacked  the  big  lumps  over 
the  head  with  them.  Leastways  we  aimed  to 
whack  'em  on  the  head,  but  it  was  pretty  dark. 
I  guess  we  scorched  'em  considerable  by  the 
smell.  There  was  one  wallowed  in  the  creek 
to  put  himself  out.  Seemed  as  if  that  corral 
was  full  of  bears,  but  in  the  morning  when  we 
counted  the  tracks  there  were  only  four." 

But  think  of  knowing  a  man  who  could 
whack  four  big  California  bears  over  the  head 
with  a  fire-brand  ! 

There  was  never  anything  to  equal  the  spring 
shearing  at  old  Tejon;  when  there  were  eighty 
thousand  head  to  be  clipped,  you  can  imagine 
it   was   a   considerable    affair.    Seventv-five   or 


RAN'CHOS    Ti:jON  239 

eighty  Indians  bent  backs  under  the  sheds 
for  five  or  six  weeks  at  a  time,  and  Nadeau's 
great  eight-ox  teams  creaked  southward  to  Los 
Angeles,  a  hundred  and  twent)-  miles,  with  the 
wool.  All  this  finished  with  a  fiesta  lasting  a 
week,  with  prizes  for  races  and  cockfights,  with 
monte  and  dancing,  and,  of  course,  always  a 
priest  at  hand  to  take  his  dole  of  the  shearing 
wage  and  confess  his  people  where  the  altar 
was  set  out  with  drawn-work  altar-cloths  and 
clusters  of  wild  lilies  in  the  ramada,  that  long 
two-walled  house  of  wattled  brush  that  served 
the  Indian  so  well.  Once  there  was  a  cloud- 
burst in  the  canon  behind  the  rancheria  and 
the  water  came  roaring  against  the  huts,  and 
the  ramada  —  but  one  must  really  make  an 
end  of  incident,  and  follow  after  the  sheep. 

You  should  have  seen  Don  Jose  Jesus  let- 
ting his  cigarette  die  out  between  his  fingers 
as  he  told  the  story  of  his  Long  Drive,  young- 
vigor  and  the  high,  clean  color  of  romance 
lightening  the  becoming  portliness  of  middle 
years.  Even  then  you  would  miss  something 
in  not  being  able  to  pronounce  his  name  with 


240  THE    FLOCK 

its  proper  soft  elisions  and  insistent  rhythm, 
Jose  Jesus  Lopez. 

Senor  Lopez  began  to  be  major-domo  of  the 
sheep  at  Tejon  in  '74,  shaped  to  his  work  by 
much  experience  in  the  Southwest.  In  '79,  that 
year  of  doubtful  issues,  he  left  La  Liebre  on 
the  desert  side  to  drive  ten  thousand  sheep  to 
Cheyenne.  He  had  with  him  twelve  men,  none 
too  well  seasoned  to  the  work,  and  a  son  of 
the  only  Henry  Ward  Beecher  for  his  book- 
keeper. How  this  came  about,  and  why  Beecher 
left  them  before  accomplishing  the  adventure, 
does  not  belong  in  this  story,  but  there  is  no 
doubt  Don  Jose  Jesus^  proved  himself  the  bet- 
ter man. 

They  went  out,  I  say,  by  La  Liebre,  north- 
ward across  the  Antelope  \'alley  when  the 
chili-cojote  was  in  bloom  and  began  to  traverse 
the  Mojave  desert.  Well  I  know  that  country! 
A  huge  fawn-colored  hollow,  drawn  on  its  bor- 
ders into  puckery  hills,  guttered  where  they 
run  together  by  fierce,  infrequent  rains  ;  moun- 
tains rear  on  its  horizons  out  of  tremulous 
deeps  of  air,  with  mile-long  beds  of  lava  simu- 
lating- cloud  shadows  on  their  streaked  sides. 


RANCHOS    Ti:jON  241 

Don  Jesus  went  with  his  sheep  in  parted  bands 
like  Jacob  taking  out  his  flocks  from  Padan- 
aram,  dry  camp  upon  dry  camp,  one  day  like 
to  every  other.  If  they  saw  any  liuman  traces 
on  that  journey  it  might  have  been  the  Owens 
Valley  stage  whirling  on  the  thin,  hard  road, 
or  the  twenty-mule  ore  wagons  creaking  in 
from  the  plain  of  Salt  Wells,  stretching  far 
and  flat. 

All  trails  through  that  country  run  together 
in  the  gorge  of  Little  Lake,  untwining  on  their 
separate  errands  as  they  open  out  toward  Coso. 
Don  Jose  kept  on  northward  until  he  had 
brought  the  ten  thousand  to  pasture  in  the 
river  bottom  below  Lone  Pine,  where  the  scar 
of  the  earthquake  drop  was  still  red  and  raw. 
Enough  Spanish  Calif ornians  had  been  drawn 
into  that  country  by  Cerro  Gordo  and  neigh- 
boring mines  to  make  entertainment  for  so 
personable  a  young  man  as  Don  Jose  Jesus, 
dancing  in  the  patios  at  moonrise  with  the 
sefioritas  and  drinking  their  own  vintages 
with  courteous  dons.  The  flock  rested  here- 
about some  weeks  and  passed  up  the  east  side 
of  the  valley  loiteringly,  finally  crossing  through 


242  THI-:    FLOCK 

the  White  Mountains  to  Deep  Springs  Valley, 
thus  far  with  no  ill  fortune.  That  was  more 
than  could  be  laid  to  most  adventurers  into 
that  region.  A  little  before  that  time  John 
Barker  had  foraged  as  far  north  with  twenty- 
two  thousand  sheep,  retiring  disgustedly  with 
nine  thousand.  Said  he,  "  Where  we  camped 
we  left  the  ground  kicking  with  dying  sheep." 
This  was  the  time  of  the  great  drouth,  when 
season  after  season  the  rains  delayed,  flinging 
themselves  at  last  in  wasteful  fury  on  a  baked, 
impervious  soil.  Rack-boned  cattle  died  in 
the  trails  with  their  heads  toward  the  place  of 
springs,  and  thousands  of  flocks  rotted  in  the 
dry  ravines.  Lopez  took  his  sheep  by  the  old 
Emigrant  Trail,  southward  of  the  peak  I  watch 
daily,  lifted  clear  white  and  shining  above  the 
summer  haze,  and  came  into  the  end  of  Deep 
Springs.  The  feed  of  that  country  is  bunch 
grass  with  stubby  shrubs,  shoulder  high  to  the 
sheep.  The  ten  thousand  passed  here  and 
reached  Piper's  in  good  condition,  having 
drunk  last  in  Owens  Valley.  Piper  was  a 
notable  cattleman  of  those  parts,  annexing  as 
much   range  as  could  be  grazed  over  from  the 


RAN'CHOS    TKJON  243 

oasis  where  his  ranch  house  stood,  and  looked 
with  the  born  distrust  of  the  cowman  on  the 
sheepherder.  Notwithstanding,  the  manners 
of  Don  Jose  won  him  permission  to  keep  the 
sheep  along  the  stream-side  until  they  should 
have  their  fill  of  water.  But  sheep  are  fastidi- 
ous drinkers,  and  the  water  of  Piper's  Creek 
was  not  to  their  likino;. 

Now  observe,  the  flock  had  come  over  a 
mountain  range  and  across  a  considerable 
stretch  of  sandy  and  alkali-impregnated  soil 
since  last  watering,  but  they  would  not  drink. 
Lopez  hoped  for  a  living  stream  at  Pigeon 
Springs,  but  here  the  drouth  that  fevered  all 
the  land  had  left  a  caked  and  drying  hole. 
Now  they  pushed  the  fagged  and  footsore 
sheep  toward  Lida  Valley,  where  there  was 
a  reservoir  dammed  up  for  a  mine,  for  there  is 
gold  in  that  country  and  silver  ore,  very  pre- 
cious; but  an  imp  of  contrariety  had  been  be- 
fore them,  and  though  the  sheep  were  pushed 
into  it  and  swam  about  in  the  pool  sullenly, 
they  would  not  drink. 

All  that  country  was  strange  to  Don  Jose 
Jesus,  bewildering  whitey-brown  flanks  of  hill 


244  THE    PXOCK 

and  involved  high  mesas  faced  by  dull  blue 
mountain  ridges  exactly  like  all  other  dull 
blue  ridges.  A  prospector,  drifted  in  from  the 
outlying  camps,  reported  abundance  of  feed 
and  water  at  a  place  called  Stonewall.  Lopez 
sent  men  forward  with  picks  and  shovels  to 
make  a  drinking-place  while  he  came  on  slowly 
with  the  flock,  but  after  two  days  he  met  his 
men  returning.  No  water,  said  they,  but  a 
slow^  dribble  from  the  cracks  of  seepage  in  the 
stone  wall.  Now  they  turned  the  flock  aside 
toward  Stone  Cabin,  footsore,  with  heaving 
flanks  and  shrunken  bellies.  At  home,  they 
might  feed  a  winter  long  on  the  rain-bedewed 
tall  pastures  without  drink,  but  here  on  the 
desert  where  the  heat  and  dryness  crumple 
men  like  grass  in  a  furnace,  the  sheep,  though 
traveling  by  night,  suffered  incredibly.  All 
through  the  dark  they  steered  a  course  by  the 
stars  that  swung  so  low  and  white  in  the  desert 
air ;  morning  and  evening  they  fed  as  they 
might  on  the  dry  sapless  shrubs,  and  at  noon 
milled  too:ether  on  the  sand.  Each  seekino; 
protection  for  its  head  under  the  body  of  an- 
other, they  piled  hot  and  close  and   perished 


RANCHOS    TEJON  245 

upon  their  feet.  Made  senseless  by  heat  and 
thirst,  they  strayed  from  the  trail-weary  herders. 
Lopez,  following  such  a  band  of  estrays  into 
the  fawn  and  amethyst  distances,  at  the  end  of 
two  days  had  lost  all  his  water,  and  persisting- 
to  the  end  of  the  third  day,  began  to  fail.  His 
men,  not  finding  him  where  he  had  appointed 
a  meeting,  returned  to  his  point  of  starting 
and  took  up  the  clue  of  his  tracks;  following 
until  they  saw^  him  through  a  field-glass,  at 
last,  going  forward  dizzily  in  the  bluish  light 
of  dawn.  They  had  no  more  than  come  up 
with  him,  when  at  the  relieving  touch  of  water 
in  his  parched  throat,  he  fell  away  into  a  deep 
swoon  of  exhaustion.  For  three  hours  his  spirit 
ebbed  and  tugged  in  the  spent  body  while  the 
men  sheltered  him  in  their  own  shadows  from 
the  sun  and  w'aited,  as  they  of  the  desert  know 
how  to  wait  its  processes  and  occasions.  At  last, 
having  eaten  and  drunk  again,  he  was  able  to 
make  the  remaining  thirty  miles  to  camp  and 
bring  in  his  sheep  to  Stone  Cabin,  where  there 
was  a  well  of  fresh,  sweet  drink.  They  had  come 
a  hundred  and  thirty  miles  with  the  f^ock  all 
waterless  ;  and  Don  Jose  Jesus  laughed  when 


246  THE    FLOCK 

he  told  it.  He  had  companioned  with  thirst; 
failure  had  stalked  him  in  the  bitter  dust ;  he 
had  seen  death  camping  on  his  trail ;  and  after 
six  and  twenty  years  he  laughed,  a  little  as  a 
woman  laughs  for  remembered  love.  By  which 
I  take  it,  he  is  a  man  to  whom  the  taste  of 
work  is  good. 

The  flock  drifted  northward  across  Nevada 
until  they  came  to  where  sixty  feet  of  Snake 
River  roared  in  the  way.  Indian  agents,  it 
seems,  exist  merely  to  fill  agencies.  At  any 
rate,  the  one  in  charge  of  the  Bannock  Reser- 
vation would  mediate  neither  for  Seiior  Lopez 
nor  the  Indians. 

"Any  way  you  fix  it,  if  you  get  into  trouble," 
said  the  agent,  "  don't  look  to  me." 

Lopez  set  a  guard  about  his  horses  and  his 
camp,  sought  for  El  Capitan,  and  dealt  with 
him  as  man  to  man.  Twenty-four  hours  to  go 
through  on  his  feet  with  his  sheep,  his  wagon, 
and  his  men  ;  ten  Indians  to  be  paid  in  silver 
to  aid  at  the  river  ford;  that  was  the  bargain 
he  made  with  the  chief  of  the  Bannocks.  Judge 
then  his  consternation  as  he  came  to  the  river 
border  in  the  morning  with  the  last  of  his  bands, 


RANCHOS   TKJOX  247 

to  find  three  hundred  braves  in  })ossession  of 
the  camp.  They  ate  everything  in  sight  with 
the  greatest  cheerfidness. 

But  El   Capitan   reassured  him.  "  You   pay 
onlv  for  ten." 

When  there  was  plainly  no  more  to  be  eaten, 
the  chief  laid  the  hollow  of  his  hand  to  his 
mouth  and  lifted  a 
long  cry  like  a  wolf's 
howl.  I  n  s  t  a  n  1 1  }' 
three  hundred 
braves  had  stripped 
and  plunged  into 
the  icy  swell  of  the 
ford.  The  chuckle 
of  their  laughter 
was  louder  than  the 
rush  of  its  waters.  Shouting,  they  drew  into 
two  lines,  beating  the  water  with  their  hands. 
When  the  herders  brought  up  the  sheep,  one 
and  another  of  them  was  plunged  into  the  living 
chute.  As  they  struck  the  water  they  were  shot 
forward  by  long  arms ;  the  shoulder  of  one  sheep 
crowded  the  rump  of  another.  Spat !  Spat ! 
went  the  vigorous,  brown  arms.    The  swish   of 


248  THE    FLOCK 

the  river,  cloven  by  the  stream  of  sheep,  was 
like  the  rip  of  water  in  closed  sluices.  The 
wall  of  shining  bodies  swayed  with  the  current 
and  withstood  it. 

"  As  I  live  by  bread,"  says  Don  Jose  Jesus, 
"  ten  thousand  sheep  went  over  in  half  an 
hour." 

The  herders,  swimming  over,  formed  the 
dripping  flocks  into  bands,  and  pushed  them 
forward,  for  the  point  where  the  play  of  savages 
turns  to  plundering  is  easily  passed.  Lopez 
called  up  El  Capitan,  and  the  chief  called  up 
the  ten.  Two  dollars  and  a  half  of  silver  money 
went  to  the  chief,  and  one  dollar  and  a  half  to 
each  of  his  men.  The  rest  of  the  two  hundred 
and  ninety  naked  Bannocks,  having  swum 
the  wagons  over,  played  on  unconcernedly  as 
boys  in  the  freezing  river.  Within  less  than 
their  allotted  twenty-four  hours,  Lopez  was  clear 
of  the  reservation.  Some  stragglers  still  stuck 
to  his  trail,  bent  on  thieving,  and  one,  profess- 
ing himself  son  of  the  chief,  rode  after  them 
threateningly,  demanding  a  toll,  but  was  ap- 
peased with  two  dollars  in  silver,  and  the  flock 
turned  eastward  across  the  tablelands. 


RAXCHOS    TKJON  249 

All  this  Iliad  of  adventure  leads  merely  to 
the  transfer  of  the  flock  by  sale  at  Cheyenne  — 
squalid  and  inadequate  conclusion!  No,  but 
these  are  the  processes  by  which  the  green 
bough  of  the  man-strain  renews  itself  in  the 
suffocating  growth  of  trade.  Not  that  you 
should  have  mutton,  but  that  nature  should 
have  men.  It  was  so  she  put  the  stamp  of  effi- 
ciency on  Seiior  Lopez,  who  is  now  at  Tejon 
as  major-domo  of  the  cattle.  There  have  been 
no  sheep  on  the  ranch  for  some  years  except 
the  few  fat  muttons  that  ruminate  under  the 
palms,  as  effectively  decorative  in  their  way  as 
the  peacocks  trailing  hundred-eyed  plumage 
on  the  green  and  golden  grass,  lineal  descend- 
ants of  the  fowl  that  Jimmy  Rosemeyre  brought 
across  the  plains  at  the  tail-board  of  an  emi- 
grant wagon  in  '54. 

If  you  ask  me  at  a  distance  from  its  mirage- 
haunted  borders,  I  should  be  obliged  to  depre- 
ciate the  holding  by  one  man  of  so  large  and 
profitable  a  demesne  as  the  Ranchos  Tejon,  Cas- 
tac,  La  Liebre,  Los  Alamos  y  Agua  Caliente, 
but  once  inside  the  territory  of  the  badger  I 
basely  desert   from  this  high  position,  frankly 


250  THE    FLOCK 

o'lacl  of  so  wide  a  reach  of  hills  where  mists  of 
grey  tradition  deepen  to  romance,  where  no  axe 
is  laid  wantonly  to  the  root  of  any  tree,  and  no 
wild  thing  gives  up  its  life  except  in  penalty 
for  depredation.  Most  glad  I  am  of  the  blue 
lakes  of  uncropped  lupines,  of  the  wild  tangle 
of  the  odorous  vines,  of  the  unshorn  water- 
shed ;  glad  of  certain  clear  spaces  where,  when 
the  moon  is  full  and  a  light  wind  ruffles  all  the 
leaves,  soft-stepping  deer  troop  through  the 
thickets  of  the  trees. 


XIII 


THE  SHADE  OF  THE 
ARROWS 


ft 


CHAPTER   XIII 


THE    SHADE    OF    THE    ARROWS 


There  is  a  saying  of  the  Paiutes  that  no  man 
should  go  far  in  the  desert  who  cannot  sleep 
in  the  shade  of  his  arrows,  but  one  must  know 
the  desert  as  well  as  Paiutes  to  understand  it. 
In  all  that  country  east  and  south  from  Wln- 
nedumah,  moon-white  and  misty  blue,  burnt 
red  and  fading  ochre,  naked  to  the  sky,  it  is 
possible  for  a  man  to  travel  far  without  suffer- 
ing much  if  only  he  keeps  his  head  in  cover; 
two  hands'  breadth  of  shadow  between  him  and 


254  THE    FLOCK 

the  smiting  sun  or  the  hot,  staring  moon.  So 
if  he  has  a  good  quiver  full  of  feathered  arrows, 
reedy  shafts  with  the  blood  drain  smoothly  cut, 
winged  with  three  slips  of  eagle  feathers,  he 
sticks  them  in  the  sand  by  their  points,  cloudy 
points  of  obsidian  flaked  at  the  edges,  and  lies 
down  with  his  head  in  the  shadow.    This  much 

is  mere  hunter's 
craft,  but  the 
saying  goes 
deeper. 

When  Indian 
George  had  shot 
Poco  Bill,  who 
had  "  coyoted  " 
his  children  and 
caused  them  to  die,  —  for  Bill  was  a  "  coyote 
doctor  "  who  bore  grudges  against  the  cam- 
poodie,  —  so  that  when,  by  reason  of  his  evil 
medicine-making,  four  of  George's  children 
had  been  buried  with  beads  and  burnings  of 
baskets,  to  save  the  other  two  George  shot 
him,  and  when  I  had  offered  to  go  his  bail, 
because  it  is  always  perfectly  safe  to  go  bail 
for  an  Indian,  and  because   I  would  have  be- 


THE    SHADE    OF   THE    ARROWS     255 

haved  as  George  behaved  if  I  liad  believed  as 
he  beheved,  Indian  George  for  a  thank-offering 
brought  me  treasures  of  the  lore  of  his  clan, 
and  explained,  among  other  things,  that  saying 
about  the  shade  of  the  arrows. 

Now,  when  a  man  goes  from  his  own  hunt- 
ing-ground, which  is  the  forty  or  fifty  mile  ra- 
dius from  his  wickiup,  into  the  big  wilderness, 
it  is  to  meet  perils  of  many  things,  against 
which,  if  he  carries  it  not  in  himself,  there  is 
no  defense  ;  against  death  and  perversions  and 
terrors  of  madness,  the  shade  of  his  arrows. 
And  when  it  comes  to  formulatins:  the  sense 
of  man's  relations  to  all  outdoors,  depend  upon 
it  the  Indians  have  been  before  you. 

There  is  no  predicating  what  the  life  of  the 
Wild  does  to  a  man  until  you  know  what 
arrows  he  interposes  between  himself  and  its 
influences.  There  is  much  in  the  nature  of  the 
business  that  brings  him  to  it,  modifying  the 
play  of  the  wilderness  on  man  ;  cowboy  shep- 
herds and  forest  rangers,  whose  work  is  serv- 
ice and  concerned  with  the  moods  of  the  land, 
reacting  from  it  not  in  the  same  case  as  the 
solitary  prospector,  the  pocket  hunter,  the  her- 


256  THE    FLOCK 

mit,  the  merely  hired  herder.  Every  year  when 
the  cattle  are  driven  up  from  the  ranches  to 
the  mountain  meadows,  the  men  return  from 
that  venture  handsomer,  notwithstandinfj  the 
tan  and  the  three  weeks'  beard,  than  when  they 
set  out  upon  it;  and  in  the  beginning  of  the 
forestry  service,  when  one  and  another  of  the 
villagers  had  a  try  at  it  before  the  work  sorted 
them  and  selected,  one  could  see  how  in  a  sea- 
son it  cleared  the  eyes  and  tightened  the  slack 
corners  of  the  mouth.  Though  they  had  not 
before  been  tolerable,  at  the  end  of  that  time 
they  would  be  worth  talking  to. 

But  over  the  faces  of  the  men  whose  life  is 
out  of  doors,  yet  to  whom  the  surface  of  the 
earth  is  merely  the  distance  between  places, 
comes  the  curious  expression  which  is  chiefly 
the  want  of  all  expressiveness.  They  are  wise 
only  in  the  most  obvious,  the  number  of  hours 
between  water-holes,  the  forkings  of  the  trail, 
the  points  for  replenishing  supplies;  but  of  all 
that  vitalizes,  fructifies,  empty,  empty!  It  is  as 
if  one  saw  the  tawny  land  above  them  couched, 
lion-natured,  lapping,  lapping,  —  it  is  common 
to  say  in  the  vernacular  of  these  detached  indi- 


THE    SHADE    OE    TUK   ARROWS     257 

viduals  that  they  are  "cracked,"  which  is  a  way 
of  intimating  that  all  the  sap  of  human  nature 
has  leaked  out  of  them. 

These  little  towns  of  Inyo  sit,  as  it  were,  at 
the  gates  of  the  Wild,  where  seeing  men  go  in 
and  out,  going  all  very  much  of  a  sameness, 
and  returning  sorted  and  stamped  with  the 
sign  of  the  wilderness  ;  it  appears  that  chiefest 
of  the  arrows  of  protection  is  a  sense  of  natural 
beauty.  Those  who  cannot  answer  to  the  stim- 
ulus of  color  and  form  and  atmosphere  and 
suo^g^estions  of  tenderness  in  the  vales  and 
moving  strength  of  mountains,  are  so  much  at 
the  mercy  of  mere  bigness  and  blind  power  and 
terrible  isolation  that  it  seems  all  graces  wither 
and  die  in  them.  JNIen  of  this  stamp  are  curi- 
ously prone  to  stop  the  vacancies  of  nature 
with  strong  drink,  as  if  somehow  they  missed 
the  prick  of  growing  and  productive  fancy. 
Almost  any  day  you  might  see  one  such  as 
this  shouldering  the  door-posts  of  the  Last 
Chance  saloon,  or  drooped  above  the  bar  of  the 
Lone  Pine. 

But  shepherding  being  a  responsible  em- 
ployment, it  is  evident  that  if  men  so  unde- 


258  THE    FLOCK 

fended  went  about  it  they  would  soon  be 
weeded  out  by  its  natural  demands.  Be  sure, 
then,  that  the  vacant  type  will  not  often  be 
found  about  sheep  camps,  except  it  be  an  occa- 
sional hired  herder  related  to  his  work  by 
necessity.  Every  shepherd  will  have  something 
worth  while  in  him,  though  when  you  talk  to- 
gether, since  one  of  you  speaks  a  tongue  not 
his  own,  it  does  not  follow  that  you  may  draw 
it  out.  Besides  it  really  is  not  exigent  to  a 
sense  of  natural  beauty  to  be  able  to  talk  about 
it.  As  if  without  loquaciousness  it  were  impos- 
sible for  a  man's  food  to  nourish  him,  or  medi- 
cine do  him  good.  When  one  premises  an 
appreciation  of  the  aspect  of  the  land  beyond 
the  question  of  its  service,  it  is  not  invariably 
because  the  shepherd  has  said  so,  but  because 
he  exhibits  its  natural  reactions.  Should  he 
lack  the  chiefest  arrow,  then  the  Wild  sucks 
out  of  him,  along  with  the  habit  of  ready 
speech,  most  of  the  fitnesses  for  social  living. 
Ouickliest  you  get  at  the  evidence  of  it  by  ob- 
serving if  the  man  has  no  shyness  in  his  soul, 
but  only  in  h.is  demeanor;  whether  he  exhibits 
toward  you  the  avoidance  of  the  rabbit,  or  with 


THIC    SHADl-:    OF    THE    ARROWS     259 

an  untroubled  bearing  eludes  you  in  his  thought. 
I  am  convinced,  though,  that  it  is  not  entirely 
the  inconsequence  of  other  peojDle's  affairs  that 
clips  the  speech  of  the  outliers,  but  the  faculty 
of  knowing  with  the  fewest  possible  hints  what 
the  other  is  driving  at.  Two  Indians,  two  shep- 
herds, understand  each  other  as  readily  as  coy- 
otes when  they  cut  out  lambs  from  the  flock  ; 
so,  also,  my  friend  and  I  ;  but  I  never  know 
what  a  sheepherder  is  thinking  about  unless 
I  ask  him,  and  not  always  then. 

Most  frequently  he  is  not  thinking  of  his 
troubles,  for  the  lesson  most  completely  learned 
by  the  outlier  is  the  naturalness  of  disaster.  It 
is  bea^innino-  to  be  believed  bv  a  hill-subduino- 
river-taming  people  that  trouble  also  is  amen- 
able to  the  hand  of  man.  But  the  outlier  does 
not  so  understand  it.  He  begins  by  finding 
the  weather  beyond  his  province,  and  ends  by 
determining  death  and  catastrophe,  the  shud- 
dering avalanche,  the  cloudburst,  the  pestilence, 
so  much  too  big  for  him  as  not  to  be  worth 
fretting  about.  As  well  disturb  one's  self  at  the 
recurrent  flux  of  nig-ht  and  day.  If  the  waters 
of  a  dry  creek  arise  in  the  night,  being  vexed 


26o  THE    FLOCK 

at  their  source  by  furious  rains,  as  they  did  in 
Tecuya,  and  wipe  out  three  or  four  hundred  of 
a  flock,  if  they  are  scourged  by  the  hot  dust- 
bHnd  winds  past  the  herder's  power  to  gather 
them  up,  being  a  Frenchman  he  might  be  seen 
to  weep,  but  is  not  embittered,  and  begins  again. 
And  when  you  ask  him  how  he  fares,  will  not 
remember  to  mention  such  as  this  without 
being  asked. 

It  is  said  by  the  casual  excursionist  into  the 
outdoor  life,  and  said  so  often  that  most  be- 
lieve it,  that  it  destroys  caste  by  obliterating 
the  differences  of  men  ;  but  in  fact  the  wilder- 
ness fixes  it  by  rendering  their  distinctions 
natural.  For  the  Wild  has  not  much  power  to 
suo:a:est  the  human  relation.  Social  ima^'inino-s 
are  the  product  of  the  house-habit  and  social 
use.  Much  of  our  interest  in  other  humans 
arises  in  the  community-bred  necessity  of  ef- 
fecting an  adjustment  toward  them,  and  to 
adjust  successfully,  needing  to  know  whence 
they  are  derived  and  how  related  to  other  men. 
P>ut  the  life  of  Outdoors  rendering  such  ad- 
justments superfluous,  it   is  possible  to   meet 


THK    SHADE    OF    T1I1<:    ARROWS     261 

another  outlier  without  prefiguring  any  relation 
toward  him,  and  therefore  without  curiosity. 

There  is  something  more  than  poetry  —  I  do 
not  know  just  what  it  is,  but  certainly  not 
poetry  —  in  the  acknowledgment  of  the  power 
of  the  Wild  to  effect  a  social  divorcement 
without  sensible  dislocation,  though  one  be- 
comes aware  of  it  only  on  returning  to  close 
communities  to  discover  a  numbness  in  the 
faculty  of  quick  and  multifarious  social  adjust- 
ments. Much  of  coldness,  shyness,  dullness, 
pride,  imputed  to  those  newly  drawn  from  the 
wilderness  is  in  fact  sheer  inability  to  enter- 
tain relations  to  incalculable  numbers  of  folk. 
The  relations  of  the  outlier  to  all  other  men 
are  of  as  much  simplicity  as  of  one  wild  species 
to  another;  liaisons,  conspiracies,  feuds  they 
keep  locked  within  their  order. 

Once  when  I  had  a  meal  with  a  herder  of 
Soldumbehry's,  I  had  left  my  cup  with  him  by 
inadvertence,  a  cheap,  collapsible  cup  which 
I  was  used  to  carry  on  the  range,  and  thought 
not  worth  going  back  for.  The  herder  put 
up  the  cup  in  his  cayaques ;  and  drifted  along 
■  the  foothills  out  of  my  range.  Three  months 
S 


262  THE    FLOCK 

later,  not  having  met  with  me  and  about  to 
pass  through  the  mountains  to  the  east  side,  he 
gave  the  cup  to  his  brother  who  held  a  bunch 
of  wethers  fattening  for  the  local  market.  This 
one  kept  it  until,  at  the  beginning  of  the  fall 
returning,  he  passed  it  to  a  herder  of  Louis 
Olcese,  a  scared,  bushy-bearded  man,  like  an 
owl  looking  out  of  the  rabbit-brush,  traveling 
my  way.  By  the  ford  of  Oak  Creek  he  trans- 
ferred the  cup  to  his  "  boss."  Him  I  met  on 
the  county  road  trundling  south  in  his  supply 
wagon.  The  boss  dug  up  a  roll  of  bedding, 
untied  it,  unwrapped  a  blue  denim  blouse,  un- 
folded a  red  bandanna  handkerchief,  and  with 
this  account  of  it,  handed  me  up  my  cup.  It 
was  worth  perhaps  a  quarter,  and  any  one  of 
these  men  would  have  stolen  feed  from  his 
own  brother;  but  they  touched  society  at  no 
points  not  affected  by  sheep.  And  when  you 
think  of  it,  no  one  ever  heard  of  a  sheepherder 
"  shooting  up  the  town." 

Nothing  contributes  more  to  the  sense  of  hu- 
man inconsequence  than  the  unhoused  nights 
of   shepherding.     In    the   man-infested   places 


THE    SHADE    OV  THE    ARROWS     263 

the  cessation  of  laborious  noises,  the  subdued 
hum  of  domesticity,  give  a  sense  of  pause,  a 
hint  of  dominance,  as  if  we  had  called  uj)  the 
night  in  the  manner  of  a  perfect  servant  with 
sleep  upon  her  arm.  Ikit  in  the  Wild  the 
night  moves  forward  at  an  impulse  flowing 
from  unknowable  control.  Darkness  comes 
out  of  the  ground  and  wells  up  to  the  caiion 
rims,  light  still  diffusing  through  the  uj^per 
sky,  a  world  of  light  beyond  our  world.  Few 
things  beside  man  suffer  a  check  in  their 
affairs.  The  wind  treads  about  the  forest  litter 
on  errands  of  its  own  ;  you  hear  it  but  the 
more  plainly  as  if  blackness  were  a  little  less 
resistant  to  sound.  The  roar  of  the  stream 
rises;  even  by  the  gibbous  moon  it  finds  the 
lowest  o-round.  Plants  orive  off  insistent  odors, 
have  all  their  power  to  poison,  prick,  and  tear. 
A  match  struck  at  any  hour  of  the  night  shows 
you  the  little  ants  running  up  and  down  the 
pine-boles  at  the  head  of  vour  bed  regardless 
of  the  dark,  for  the  night  is  not  an  occasion, 
merely  an  incident. 

Moonlight   approaching    picks    out    certain 
high  patches  of  snow,  filtering  through  unsus- 


264  THE    FLOCK 

pected  yawnings  of  the  peaks.  Among  the 
high  close  pinnacles  it  halts  and  fumbles,  glints 
like  a  hard  bright  jewel  along  the  pillared  rocks. 
At  moonrise  the  shadows  of  the  hills  are  in- 
conceivably deep,  the  shade  of  the  pine-trees 
blacker  than  the  pines.  The  lakes  glimmer 
palely  between  them  with  the  pellucid  black- 
ness of  volcanic  glass,  reflecting  the  half-lighted 
steep,  the  hollow  firmament  of  stars.  Over 
the  rim  of  them  one  seems  to  plunge  into  the 
clear  obscure  of  space.  By  like  imperceptible 
lapses,  night  clarifies  to  day.  Blackness  with- 
drawing from  the  sky  is  reabsorbed  by^  the 
mountains  which  show  darkling  for  a  time, 
revealing  slow  contours  as  the  shadows  sink 
in  and  in.  They  collect  in  lakes  and  pools  in 
the  troughs  of  the  canons  and  are  gathered  to 
the  pines. 

The  appreciation  of  this  large  process,  going 
on  independently  of  the  convenience  and  the 
powers  of  man,  impinges  on  the  dullest  sense, 
provided  only  it  has  a  little  window  where 
the  knowledge  of  beauty  may  come  in.  Its 
ultimate  function  is  to  laj)  the  outlier  in  an 
isolation   like   to   that   which   separates   brute 


THE    SHADE    OE    THE    ARROWS     265 

species  from  brute  species.  It  is  aj3})reciably  of 
a  greater  degree  in  those  who  sleep  always  in 
the  open  than  in  the  hill  frequenters  who  roof 
themselves  o'  nights.  You  come  to  the  camp 
of  an  outlier  and  are  welcome  to  his  food  and 
his  fire,  but  are  no  nearer  to  him  than  a  bird 
and  a  squirrel  grow  akin  by  hopping  on  the 
same  bough.  He  accepts  you  not  because  you 
are  on  the  same  footing,  but  because  you  are 
so  essentially  differentiated  there  is  no  use 
talking  about  it. 

"  And  do  you,"  inquires  the  community- 
bred,  "  00  about  alone,  unhurt  and  unoffended 
in  the  Wild  ?  "  What  else.''  The  divination  of 
natural  caste  is  extraordinarily  swift  and  keen 
in  the  outlier,  keen  as  the  weather  sense  in 
cattle.  Their  women-folk,  being  house-inhab- 
iting, might  assume  a  groundless  intimacy, 
premise  a  community  of  interests  when  neces- 
sarily barred  from  whole  blocks  of  your  ex- 
perience, even  annoy  by  a  baseless  conceit  of 
advantage,  but  cowboys  and  shepherds,  trap- 
pers and  forest  rangers,  make  no  such  mis- 
takes. 

It  is  true  that  one  carries  that  in  one's  belt 


266  THE    FLOCK 

to  prevent  offense  at  a  dozen  yards  ;  such  as 
this  are  the  teeth  and  claws  which  every 
inhabitant  of  the  Wild  has  a  right  to,  and  on 
the  mere  evidence  of  carrying  about,  avoids 
the  necessity  of  using.  But  the  real  arrow  of 
defense  is  the  preoccupation  of  the  motive,  the 
natural  and  ineradicable  difference  of  kind. 
It  is  not  in  fact  the  dread  of  beasts  nor  the 
fear  of  man  that  causes  one  to  go  softly  in 
the  Wild,  but  the  assault  it  makes  on  the 
spirit.  Knowing  all  that  the  land  does  to 
humans,  one  would  go  fearsomely  except  that 
the  chiefest  of  its  operations  is  to  rob  one 
finally  of  all  fear,  —  and  besides,  I  have  ahvays 
had  arrows  enough. 


4 


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